My basic understanding of who a leader is suggests that a leader is one who can steer his followers towards the set objectives. Thus, in leadership, two (2) variables are constant; ‘followers’ and ‘objectives or vision’. At this point, I wonder if the Hon. Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has followership among the people in the Ministry he leads (apart from his Spokesperson and his appointees, not sure about his Deputy, but that’s by the way)? If he has, do they align or subscribe to his vision for the Ministry of Health, if there be any?
The real question of the day is, “What have the teaching hospitals done wrong to Mr. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh?”. The Minister of Health, Hon. Mintah Akandoh, has ‘faced it off’ with three out of the six teaching hospitals in Ghana, at different times, in the last three (3) years.
It started with his face-off with the Korle-Bu doctors in late 2024 as the then Ranking Member of Health, which was a matter known to many and widespread. Then came Tamale Teaching Hospital in April 2025, where the Minister flew to Tamale to go and sack the CEO after he felt disrespected by a medical officer who stood his ground and explained facts surrounding an alleged case of negligence. The doctors in the facility suspended their services and the Minister was unfazed and the matter fizzled out like the gas in an opened carbonated drink. One year, one teaching hospital ‘mangana’.
In June 2026, the baton fell on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, where the Minister in a press release couched as a letter, suspended the CEO (at least he was not sacked) for allowing his staff to turn away referrals due to ‘no-bed syndrome’. Minister says CEO should have ensured that the issue was contained at any political cost, to his benefit. Yes, as confusing and unreasonable as it may seem, that is the reality of the famous former Dining Hall Prefect turned Health Policy expert. This has led to the doctors at KATH going on an indefinite strike, with the nurses and midwives set to tow the same line, until the reinstatement of the suspended CEO. The Ministry has defended its unwarranted action despite calls from stakeholders, like the Minority in Parliament through Hon. Dr. Nana Ayew Afriye, Ghana Medical Association, voices of conscience, doctors, nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and real health policy experts.
The bigger picture is that this indirectly puts the ‘fear of the Lord’ in all other CEOs or leaders of government hospitals to put the political image ahead of the people’s wellness. How and why should a CEO be fired for the unavailability of beds in the hospital he administers, when the Minister who is supposed to ensure that such a crisis is avoided, is still at post? Make it make sense to me! Some say, it was the no-bed syndrome in KATH that led to the Ashanti Regional Minister’s wife finding a bed in a maternal ward in another country, supposedly (that was by the way though as politicians on both sides of the divide are guilty).
His time in office has been fraught with so much negative press about the Ministry of Health getting it so wrong with the stakeholders in the health sector. If it is not the Minister himself irking a group, then it is his spokesperson, Tony Goodman (I do not know whether the people in and under the Ministry think he is a ‘good man’ though), doing a bad damage control.
Some discerning Ghanaians do not know whether he is paying for the sins of his propaganda as Ranking Member on the Health Committee of Parliament, because his predecessors, whose works he bastardized, have been better performers and managers of the health sector. Instead of focusing of the daily health challenges confronting us in Ghana, the Minister seems to find so much pleasure in antics and optics. Instead of completing the Agenda 111 Hospitals and handing over the completed Agenda 111 and remaining Euroget hospitals, we are back to celebrating CHPS compounds in 2026.
Two years into the eight-year tenure of the Nana Akufo-Addo – Bawumia administration, the government had successfully launched the Zipline Medical Drone Services, handed over the Twifo Praso and Fomena Euroget Hospitals, purchased over 300 ambulances for the National Ambulance Service, revitalized the National Health Insurance Scheme, operationalized UGMC Phase I and launched the UGMC Phase II project, begun constructing regional and district hospitals across the country and putting up of polyclinics to increase access to primary healthcare. If we want to talk about the full eight years and the remarkable achievements, it will be a long write-up.
The flip in the first two years under the new NDC government has been the Minister of Health and his appendages ‘beefing’ doctors, nurses, midwives, lab scientists and other allied health professionals in Tamale Teaching Hospital, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and Accra Ridge Hospital on all sorts of matters which they have little or no control over. The list includes press conferences or releases (that outnumber the number of health interventions), CHPS compound updates, recycling existing health initiatives, demonstrations, strikes and threats of same, among others. It has been talk shops, empty promises, ‘blogger-followed surprise visits’ and ‘settings’.
My questions in conclusion are: which teaching hospital is next to face the Minister’s ‘lesson’? Is Ghana’s health policy in the right hands and direction? Most importantly, were all of these ‘dramas’ necessary?
We need a Health Minister who will not sacrifice the health of the ordinary Ghanaian to paint a good political image. In the words of my brother Dr. Jay in reaction to news of the Ministry’s call for dialogue four (4) days after the KATH fact, he writes that “Why do you do what you want and then when there is a reaction, you call for dialogue... Then the decision making of the ministry is poor!!! As a leader, your thought process in decision making is poor. How do you make decision without thinking of the possible effects and then choose one that will bring things to this point……. It was the same at Tamale Teaching Hospital. You did what you wanted, broke infection prevention protocol by bringing in the media, wrongly accused and humiliated the senior specialist and then later called for dialogue when issues escalated…… You can't eat your cake and have it. In all your getting, get wisdom!”. This one of thousands of similar sentiments.
In fact, you do not need to be a health professional to effectively lead the health sector. Hence, when an opportunity is given let us not stir up the angst of the people who take care of our health but meaningfully contribute to the development of the health sector. It is my hope and fervent prayer that what you, my dear reader, thinks needs to be done, to solve the problems of our health sector, will be done.
Yah guide!
By: Kofi Opandoh, The Tamed Bear
