The Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has urged District Directors of Health Services (DDHS) to ensure the judicious use of resources allocated to the Free Primary Health Care (FPHC) programme, warning that inefficiency could undermine the policy at its inception.
He said the government had made significant financial, equipment and logistical commitments to ensure the successful implementation of the programme and, therefore, district health managers must take ownership of it and ensure that the resources reached the communities for which they were intended.
“Let us not kill this policy on arrival.
As a government, we will continue to do our best. Let’s have efficiency.
Let us not put all the expenditure on free primary healthcare as if free primary health care is a health sector,” he stated.
Conference
Mr Akandoh was speaking at the 33rd Annual General Conference of the District Directors of Health Services Group, Ghana, held on the theme: “From Policy to Practice — The DDHS Driving Free Primary Health Care in Ghana,” in Bolgatanga on September 10, 2026.
He said the district level was critical to the success of the policy because that was where government interventions would ultimately reach ordinary Ghanaians, stressing that the directors were the “soldiers on the ground” responsible for translating policies into practical healthcare services.
GH¢1.5bn allocation
The minister said the government had allocated GH¢1.5 billion to the FPHC programme this year, stressing that the funding was from domestic resource mobilisation and was not donor funding.
“This money is not donor funding. This money is domestic mobilisation of resources. What is important here is that there must be judicious use of the resources you have,” he urged.
Mr Akandoh said the government had also procured more than 25,500 pieces of equipment for primary healthcare facilities and would soon take delivery of another 12,000 pieces to further close existing equipment gaps.
He said additional logistics, including motorbikes and tricycles, were also being provided to strengthen community-level healthcare delivery.
“We are not only speaking and promising; we are determined to make sure that what you need to be able to deliver this free primary health care, we will get to you,” he added.
Prevention
The minister described prevention and health promotion as the “game changer” in the government’s Free Primary Health Care (FPHC) programme, saying the approach would help Ghana detect diseases early and reduce the burden on the health system.
‘’Although the programme will provide free treatment for common conditions such as malaria, respiratory diseases, diarrhoea, among others that for me is not the game changer.
The game changer is the preventive and promotion aspect, so that we will be able to prevent a disease before it even happens or detect it at the earliest stage to be able to manage it well.
Commitment
The National Chairperson of the DDHS Group, Dr Justice Thomas Savugu, assured the minister that district health directors were committed to translating the policy into practical services, stressing that its success depended largely on their ability to innovate and reach more people with limited resources.
“The success of this policy is not to you but to ourselves, as our clients at some point in time and we become patients at another point in time. So when we make it better, we ourselves become beneficiaries,” he stated.
The Upper East Regional Health Director, Dr Braimah Baba Abubakari, cautioned that free primary healthcare must not compromise service quality, stressing that increased access should be matched with adequate personnel, medicines, equipment and effective systems.
He urged district health managers to strengthen accountability and use health data intelligently to guide decisions, ensuring that every resource entrusted to the health system is translated into improved outcomes for patients and communities.
The President of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs, Pe Ditundini Adiali Ayagitam III, said the traditional council was committed to helping the policy succeed for the benefit of vulnerable people who had long suffered in accessing health services.
