The Director General of the Ghana Health Service has mounted scathing attacks on the educated middle class in Ghana accusing them of exploiting the poor and the vulnerable in society.
Prof Agyeman Badu-Akosa who was speaking at the 12th Williams Ofori Attah Memorial Lectures in Accra said the love for money coupled with the mad rush for wealth and riches by the educated middle class has become the order of the day in the modern Ghanaian society.
The Director General observed that to get rich quick, many people were willing to exploit the rural dwellers particularly by indulging in all sort of illicit trading activities such as selling fake drugs and harmful drugs to them, while farmers and fishermen used dangerous chemicals to increase their harvest, at the expense of the people.
Speaking on the topic “the role of patriotism in affairs of Ghana today-public scene” Prof Akosa expressed regret that the middle class professionals in Ghana had neglected their roots and had left the rural and village folk to continue in their hardships.
He accused the privileged few in the society of intentionally standing against the improvement of the very communities that they had come from saying many attempts at extending affordable and reliable health delivery to the rural areas where 60 per cent of the population lived had been fiercely resisted by some managers of the teaching hospitals.
Prof Akosa expressed optimism that with the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme, the trend would be reversed to provide quality health care to all the people of Ghana.
