Hot Source
Former Health Minister Dr Bernard Okoe Boye has cautioned that Ghana could lose as much as $50 million in public funds if the government proceeds with plans to replace Lightwave e-Healthcare Solutions Ltd, the local company that built the country’s national e-health system.
In a statement on Wednesday, Dr Okoe Boye described the Ministry of Health’s decision to terminate Lightwave’s $100 million contract and engage a new vendor as “gross financial waste,” insisting that the project was already near completion.
“After investing over $73 million, training tens of thousands of staff, and connecting hundreds of facilities, Ghana cannot afford to discard a working national system for political or commercial motives,” he said.
According to the former minister, Lightwave’s digital infrastructure currently connects more than 450 public health facilities, including four teaching hospitals, six regional hospitals, and over 200 district hospitals, under the National e-Health Project that began in 2016.
He argued that abandoning the system now would disrupt care delivery and erase years of progress in digitising patient records nationwide.
Dr. Okoe Boye also pushed back against what he called “misleading claims” by the current Health Minister, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, that Lightwave was a foreign company supplying substandard equipment and hosting Ghana’s health data outside the country.
“Lightwave is wholly Ghanaian-owned, and all data remain stored within Ghana’s health infrastructure,” he said.
He further alleged that the Ministry had breached contractual dispute-resolution clauses by engaging a new company, the Ghana Health Information Management System (GHIMS) without due process.
“The unilateral termination of a functional national health system threatens continuity of care and risks data loss for over 25 million Ghanaians,” he warned, adding that GHIMS has digitised fewer than five facilities so far.
Dr Okoe Boye called on the Chief of Staff to intervene and mediate between the Ministry and Lightwave, warning that the standoff could jeopardise national health data security and waste taxpayer funds.
The Ministry of Health has introduced a new digital health information system, GHIMS to replace Lightwave’s Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS), citing poor performance and data security concerns.
Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh said Lightwave had failed to meet project timelines despite receiving over 70% of its $100 million contract sum.
“We are taking full control. Ghanaians will never go back to the manual way,” he said at a government briefing.
He added that a forensic audit had uncovered irregularities in hardware supplies and alleged that Lightwave was hosting Ghanaian health data on servers in India, a claim the company and Okoe Boye both deny.
The Ministry has since referred the matter to the Attorney-General for advice while hospitals nationwide continue to experience temporary disruptions in accessing digital patient records.
The post Okoe Boye warns Ghana risks $50m loss over e-health system dispute appeared first on The Herald ghana.
