The Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, says there are only four functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines in government health facilities across the country.
According to him, out of a total of seven government facilities, only these four are functional.
He also indicated that there are three machines in other quasi-government hospitals.
The sector minister, who was answering questions in Parliament, said; “Mr. Speaker, there are 7 of these Magnetic Resonance Imaging equipment, and there are 3 in what we call quasi hospitals. When it comes to functionality, there are only four out of these seven in government hospitals. They are in the Ghana Medical Center, Korlebu Teaching Hospital, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, which has been down for about one week, and the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, Ridge.”
“The non-functional ones have been down since 2016. Mr. Speaker, they require major repairs and multiple refilling of helium to diagnose the problems and also to cool down the magnets.”
On what is to be done about the non-functional ones, he said proposals to repair them are not convincing to the ministry; hence a prudent solution is to replace them.
“Mr. Speaker, quotations received are not economic, and the best economic solution to the prefix is to replace them. We had an experience with the one in Kumasi, it went down sometime last 2 years. We found resources to fix it, it was very expensive, yet, it is down again. The doctors advised that these machines are better replaced than fixing them over and over again.”
The quasi-government hospitals are owned by government organizations like the Bank of Ghana, Ghana Commercial Bank, and COCO BOD.
He concluded by saying regional hospitals will also be furnished with such machines and facilities with faulty ones replaced.
“Mr. Speaker, we are planning to increase the number of MRIs. Some new regional hospitals will receive the machines, it will include the Tema Regional Hospital, Sewua Regional Hospital in the Ashanti Region, Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, and the 6 new regions will also receive the machines.”
