Coronavirus Pandemic: Would Mahama have done anything differently?

Political leadership is critical during health crisis. Because crisis response decisions inevitably will be made in the absence of perfect information, leaders require judgement and common sense. Leaders must be effective since weak leadership during a crisis can cause confusion. Epidemic prone diseases threaten public health security. Interestingly, where emergency and effective preparedness plans are in place, timely detection of outbreak is followed by a prompt and appropriate measures. Early detection through a sensitive surveillance system is required to know when and where the outbreak occurs to limit its spread. Most importantly, a coordinated and rapid investigation is required to describe the outbreak and identify effective interventions. Epidemic preparedness constitutes all the activities that have to be undertaken from the national to the health facility levels to be ready to respond effectively to disease outbreak. The elements of epidemic or pandemic preparedness will include to ensure that routine surveillance system can detect outbreaks as soon as it occurs and ensure that staff are organized to respond to outbreaks. Effective management requires proper coordination of all the specialty areas involved in response activities. The technical groups must be supported by the political and public health authorities as well as administrative and logistic experts. This was how President Mahama approached and handled the Ebola epidemic.

This was the remarks the Head of the United Nations Mission for Emergency Ebola Response (UNMEER), Peter Graaff, made curing his meeting with then President John Mahama – “By allowing us to set up our headquarters in Accra, President Mahama demonstrated extraordinary leadership and solidarity. He made Ghana the only open gateway to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone thus allowing the movement of thousands of Ebola responders and medical essential supplies when they were needed”.

The UN Secretary General then, Ben Ki Moon, commanded President John Mahama for the role he played in ending the Ebola virus in West Africa. He said, the former President’s gesture of selflessness was critical in facilitating the international response against Ebola and contributed to the end of Ebola in the 3 most affected countries.

What did the Mahama administration do to combat the spread of Ebola? Government officials set up rudimentary screening and temperature testing at airports and official border crossings, and procured over 10,000 protective clothing suits for medical personnel to be used if needed. Speaking on UTV Saturday mornings political talk show, the current Director of Health services Dr Nsiah Asare said, those equipments procured by the Mahama administration are what are being used currently to check temperature etc at the ports. The Mahama government in collaboration with other supporting agencies also built an Ebola isolation center just outside the capital, and two more around the country. It was agreed that normal transit of people and goods might be stopped, accurate public information would be at a premium, both to inform and to reassure the people. In collaboration with USAID and CDC visiting team Nigeria’s most experienced epidemiologist came to a gathering in Accra of regional officials, who came as far as The Gambia, to share lessons learned about Ebola. Participants learned to decontaminate medical equipment at central regional training in Cape Coast. There were series of meetings between the US Embassy, USAID,CDC, the Chief of staff, the minister of health, the interior minister, the defense minister and the communication minister. The Mahama administration immediately started cabinet meetings on the issue. Cabinet agreed to establish an inter ministerial task force on Ebola to streamline the chain of command control. The President appointed the then deputy health minister as incident commander for Ebola. In addition, the administration activated a life insurance package for health workers to motivate them to stay on the job battling the deadly disease in case of an outbreak.

President Mahama stood on the world stage in his capacity as chair of the ECOWAS and called for urgent action to halt the spread of Ebola virus disease which was ravaging some West African countries and threatened to spread across the whole of the subregion. He commended the volunteers including the 41 Ghanaians who risked their lives by going into the infection zone to help fight the disease. The administration focused on projects for the preservation of health. He gave financial support to some pharmaceutical companies to expand their production and also go into full time research to develop other drugs for the treatment of diseases. He also decided to set up thousands of voluntary hospitals free from state control which would be handled by committee management on which local authorities and subscribers would be represented apart from the Chps compounds. Government purchased modern equipments for our hospitals and sent people abroad to be trained on how to handle these machines. The administration started building ultramodern hospitals in the districts to handle such outbreaks if they happen in the future.

In addition to sharing leadership responsibility and authority, the distributed leadership approach involved strategically engaging stakeholders and communicating extensively. The Mahama administration did not hide information about the epidemic from the public. Journalists, health personnel and other stakeholders were given limitless space to gather information and offer suggestions. The administration did not politicise the issue.

President Mahama was brutally chastised by his political opponents for taking up that responsibility. They said his initiative could import the virus into the country etc etc, but he remained determined and the equipments he acquired during the period are what his accusers are using today to combat the spread of the coronavirus. He showed self interest in the Ebola fight and worked closely with other organizations and persons including the German Chancellor, the Norwegian Prime Minister among others to weed out that devil.

Yea, Mahama would have done something different from what we seeing if the pandemic happened under his watch. He would have given sufficient attention sense making and applied efficient leadership lenses.

Source: Ohenenana Obonti Krow