The Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has called on civil society organisations (CSOs), development partners, and other stakeholders to collaborate in developing a comprehensive roadmap to guide Ghana’s response to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health challenges.
He said the roadmap would serve as a national blueprint to translate Ghana’s commitments made at the 4th United Nations High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health, held in New York earlier this year, into concrete action.
Delivering the Minister’s remarks on his behalf at a stakeholder engagement on the post-High-Level Meeting in Accra, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Health, Alhaji Hafiz Adam, said the roadmap must set out “clear priorities, measurable targets, financing strategies, and timelines for integrating NCD and mental health services into primary health care.”
The engagement was jointly organised by the Ministry of Health and the Ghana NCD Alliance.
Mr. Akandoh emphasised that the roadmap should not only strengthen the health system but also address the social and commercial determinants of health, ensuring that people with lived experience and young people are meaningfully involved in decision-making processes.
He stressed that by working together, Ghana could achieve the political commitments adopted at the UN meeting, which called for urgent and equitable global action — from doubling investments in NCD prevention to embedding mental health into all health systems.
“Central to Ghana’s call was the urgent need to break financial barriers that push individuals and households into poverty as a result of NCD and mental health care costs,” the Minister noted.
He described the New York meeting as a “reckoning affirmation that NCDs and mental health are not peripheral crises but existential threats to national development.” In Ghana, NCDs account for about 45 percent of all deaths, a situation he said underscores the need for immediate, coordinated action.
“Ghana’s delegation’s interventions ensured that the voices of African nations, and indeed our own, echoed through the halls of the UN. We underscored that the fight against NCDs and mental health challenges can no longer be treated as a silent crisis but must be recognized as a pressing and deadly reality,” Mr. Akandoh added.
The National Coordinator of the Ghana NCD Alliance, Labram Musah, commended the Ministry of Health for its consistent advocacy, particularly its stance on reducing the sugar content in beverages.
He praised Alhaji Hafiz Adam for “standing firm against commercial pressures” from industry players and supporting public health interests.
“I know industry players have commercial interests, but it is very difficult for some policymakers to admit their engagements with them. Outside, it becomes a common game that makes our work difficult. They should go back and do their homework and stop disturbing us in our fight against products that cause NCDs. The CSOs and the Ministry of Health are for the people,” he said.
The engagement ended with a renewed commitment among participants to align national health strategies with global targets and ensure that NCD and mental health interventions are prioritised in Ghana’s development agenda.
Source:Lovinghananews.com
