The Ministry of Health on Monday inaugurated an 11-member Steering Committee to oversee the implementation of its Supply Chain Master Plan (SCMP) to facilitate accountability, efficiency, cost effectiveness and promotion of policies.

It has also been charged with an oversight responsibility of providing and promoting optimal healthcare to citizens through the discharge of the central and regional duties.

Members of the steering committee comprise Dr Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, Minister of Health, two health development partners, Chief Director, MOH; Dr Ebenezer Appiah–Denkyira, Director General, Ghana Health Service, and the chief executive officers of the various teaching hospitals.

Others are the chief executive officers of the Food and Drugs Authority, and the National Health Insurance Authority, representatives of the Private Health Sector Alliance, and Central Medical Stores Management, and Mr Samuel Boateng, Director, Procument and Supply, Ministry of Health (MOH).

Dr Victor Asare Bampoe, Deputy Minister of Health, said the SCMP, which was a five-year blue-print health transformation programme, had been designed to facilitate accountability, efficiency, cost effectiveness and promote policies of the MOH.

He said it was the primary goal of the ministry, in relation to medicines and medical supplies, to ensure the availability of quality products at the locations where clients and customers would access them when they needed them for preventive or curative services and that the steering committee, among other functions, was mandated to achieve that goal.

“This goal is defined, in logistical terms, as ensuring the six rights -providing the right commodities in the right quantities and right condition to the right place at the right time for the right cost,” he said.

Dr Asare Bampoe said in recent years, a number of studies and assessments into Ghana’s health commodity supply system had revealed major structural defects with unanticipated consequences hindering the public sector’s supply chain and its performance.

He urged the committee to critically examine the social democratic nature of the regime, and formulate plans and programmes that could cater for the welfare of the people and enhance the work of the ministry.

“Improving the management of health product is a high-leverage opportunity to improve health services,” he said.

Mr Basil Ahiable, Head of the Central Medical Stores Management, on behalf of the committee, thanked the deputy minister for the confidence reposed in them and called for collective efforts as well as co-operation of members to achieve the set objectives.