A public health advocate Samuel Arthur has described as shameful the health minister’s claim that the Bank of Ghana Hospital has been reserved for VIPs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic in Ghana.

“A lot of people have been blaming government as to why the Bank of Ghana Hospital is not being used for coronavirus treatment despite the facility being well equipped to treat coronavirus. Let me say that, the Bank of Ghana health facility is not under the entire control of the government.

“We had to go into an agreement with them and the bank has agreed in addition to their own staff to have VIP people at their facility,” the minister said at a press encounter on Wednesday.

The Bank of Ghana has however clarified that the hospital is open to the general public and not just for VIPs as claimed by the minister.

Commenting on the development, Mr. Arthur said the excuse by the minister is not acceptable.

“ It’s a shame for the minister to give us that excuse. It’s a shame that it has to take Covid-19 to make us put that hospital to use,” he told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Thursday.

He also raised concerns over the decision by Ghanaian authorities to repatriate some Guineans who have tested positive for the virus in Ghana.

“Don’t they have right to healthcare? Can’t we give them healthcare and repatriate them when they are cured?”.

Ghana’s current active cases of the novel coronavirus is 195 with five deaths.

About 58 infected persons are receiving treatment at home after 20 of them were recently discharged.