Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in the area of healthcare on Thursday met at a consultative meeting in Accra to develop a ‘CSOs Health Manifesto’ to be shared with political parties as they finalize their manifestos.

The meeting was facilitated by the Universal Access to Healthcare Campaign (UAHCC), Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR), SEND Ghana, and the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG).

It created an opportunity for the CSO to make input into the development of the CSOs' Health Manifesto, which will serve as guidelines in engaging political parties on the health needs of the public.

Nii Ankonu Annorbah-Sarpei, the Campaign Coordinator for UAHCC, said as most political parties are in the process of finalizing their manifestos, it was apt for CSOs working in health engaged them to demand for the prioritization and redress of key health issues, gaps in service delivery and health systems which in the last few years have not been fully addressed or resolved by successive governments.

"We believe that health is a critical issue, it is a human right and every political party that aspires to be in power must commit to providing quality and affordable healthcare to citizens," he said.

He noted that the CSOs have had a series of consultative meetings with citizens in all parts of the country as part of efforts to identify the gaps in the health sector.

"Looking at the National health budget and its health component, we have realised that despite calls to ensure universal health coverage, there are still lots of districts without health facilities."

Nii Annorbah-Sarpei said the CSO's would use the manifesto to galvanise citizens to demand from the government to invest in health as one of its key priorities and deliver important healthcare services at all levels in alignment with what is required at the global level.

He said the government must as a matter of urgency address issues like funding for the National Health Insurance Scheme, payment of claims to health facilities on time, and deployment of health personnel.

"Despite the challenges confronting the health sector, we are happy about the provision of a legislative instrument backing the deployment of health personnel, we are also happy that the government has developed the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) road map," he said.

He called for inter-sectoral collaboration in the formulation of health policies to ensure that every health policy speaks about the same issues.

Mr Archibald Adams, Communications and Advocacy Lead, PPAG said the CSO health Manifesto which is been developed would be a single document that contains the collective inputs of the ordinary citizens gathered by various CSOs working in the different areas of health to influence manifestoes of political parties towards the general elections.

"The manifesto is to speak with one voice to the electorates, political parties, national health institutions including the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service, the National Health Insurance Authority and other ministries, agencies and departments of government with a vested interest in the health sector to work towards improving the health sector," he said.

Mr Adams said the provision of the manifesto was an effort to ensure sustainable healthcare funding and the attainment of Universal Health Coverage for Ghanaians by 2030