Stella Dziedzorm Sogli speaking with President of GHANET on Health Focus
The President of the HIV/AIDS Network, Ernest Amoabeng Ortsin, has lamented the government’s role in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Ghana.
According to him, no funds were allocated to the Ghana AIDS Commission in the last 8 years.
He noted that the commission was getting support from the global fund but this stalled since the funds were reallocated to providing HIV drugs, which are very expensive.
Speaking in the latest episode of the Health Focus on GhanaWeb TV, with Stella Dziedzorm Sogli, the GHANET president noted: “We don’t see the campaigns because the government is not giving the Ghana AIDS Commission the needed resources. In the past, the Ghana AIDS Commission used to work with NGOs to do the campaigns across the country because the commission doesn’t have the resources to do the work.”
He added “In the beginning when the HIV/AIDS Commission was established, the global fund was mainly supporting the fund to doing the work.”
GHANET noted that the medications were provided freely to patients because lack of treatment increased the risk of infections.
Amoabeng said, in this light, that his outfit has embarked on various advocacy drives to move the government to support the work they do to sensitise Ghanaians on HIV/AIDS.
“All those campaigns and education were largely funded by the Global Fund. The Global Fund said we need to buy medicine for people living with the condition and treatment is also a prevention strategy. So, Global Fund said we would provide the medicine; very expensive if you leave it for the ordinary Ghanaian, they cannot afford it, so we will buy all the medications and at the moment we have 150,000 people on medication,” he revealed.
He added that the government of Ghana was supposed to contribute and give the commission resources to continue its work.
“However, that has not been forthcoming. In 2016, the government amended the Ghana AIDS Commission Act, Act 938 2016. In that Act, a provision was made and the government was supposed to commit some resources to that fund. But in the last 8 years, advocacy upon advocacy, the previous government did not put a single dime in the fund. Not even one pesewa,” he bemoaned.
Watch the full video below
SSD/AE