Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has been accused by former President John Dramani Mahama for misleading the public that the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC) did not have a standby power system.

Mr Mahama vehemently debunked that statement from the Health minister as untrue, saying the facility as at 2016 was ready and commissioned to be duly opened to the public.

He said: “[the] health minister made a misleading claim that the facility does not have a standby power system.”

The hospital, state-of-the-art of or the tier-4 facility, is currently been operated partially even as a result of one man demonstrating for it usage as well as the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These two facts were the main forces that compelled the government to open the facility to few patients.

Mr Mahama described the health facility as “a 650 bed tier four hospital that can render a cutting edge services to our people.” Despite this huge beds facility, only the Intensive Care Unit is operationalised.

The former president said this while engaging the public in a digital conversation yesterday on his Facebook page.

Recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration made a public announcement to the effect that the facility is opened to diplomats who may fear to experience COVID-19 symptoms.

The health facility was left abandoned for three years after this government assumed power from the Mahama administration but now it opened and saving lives and serving the very purpose for which it was built.

“Because of the advance nature of the equipment and facilities in the UGMC, health staff were sent to Israel for specialised training to come and operate that hospital. This staff have still not been put to work and are currently dispense across all of our health system. The training they received have, unfortunately, been underutilized,” he sadly said.

By Bernice Bessey