Public health physician Dr. Jehu Appiah, has expressed disappointment in the current administration over its inability to manage the sanitation situation in the country. The doctor said he thought the establishment of the Sanitation Ministry was going to help manage the situation but nothing has changed, he added.

In an interview on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm with Kwame Tutu, the medical doctor said, ‘’I thought the current administration with establishment of the Sanitation Ministry meant to do god but nothing has changed.’’

About 60 per cent of cases recorded at the various OPDs in hospitals are due to insanitary conditions, he suggested. Politicians in the country he stated are only talking and not rolling out plans to manage the sanitation situation in the country. ‘’The filth in the country is at a crisis level and it looks like there is no leader in charge of Ghana.

Our leaders are not committed and serious in fighting filth in Ghana.’’ He has therefore called for the merging of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation to help manage the situation because ’’we are not serious as a country to fight filth.’’ Dr. Jehu Appiah believes we could prevent cases of typhoid fever, malaria and other related conditions if we manage our sanitation issues well.

According to him, sanitation should be a priority in Ghana and that people should willingly support and practise proper sanitation habits. ‘’I don’t think we are taking the health of Ghanaians seriously. The health of Ghanaians is the wealth of the nation. Everybody should be concerned.

The issue about sanitation is a collective agenda. We have to do our best to resolve the challenges.’’ The doctor revealed on the show he laughed when he heard the president promising to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa because the requisite things needed towards achieving this have not been adopted.

In March 2018, the Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare warned of an imminent cholera outbreak in Ghana this year with far more devastating consequences than what was experienced in 2014 and 2015, if nothing was done about the high level of filth that has engulfed major cities.

In 2014 a total of 28,975 cholera cases with 243 deaths were reported from 130 out of the 216 districts in all 10 regions of Ghana, according to the GHS. In 2015 618 cases were recorded with five deaths.