Former Health Minister Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has dismissed claims that Ghana’s health data under the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) is hosted in India, describing the statement as “an absolute falsehood.”
The former minister’s remarks come amid tensions over the LHIMS system, which the current Health Minister has described as being intentionally disrupted by the vendor over disagreements on a new maintenance agreement.
According to Minister Akandoh, the government insisted that the vendor hand over the data and grant full administrative access to the state before signing the new service agreement. The vendor reportedly refused, prompting the system shutdown that has affected hospitals across the country.
Speaking in response to recent remarks by the Health Minister, Dr. Okoe Boye expressed disappointment over what he described as “serious misrepresentations” about the location and security of the country’s health data.
“I have listened to the minister, and I am very sad with the way he has handled this matter. The minister has made a lot of statements that are outrightly false. I would not want to suggest these were intended to malign the company, but the statements are inaccurate,” Dr. Okoe Boye said.
He clarified that all health data in Ghana, including records of approximately 25 million clients, are stored on servers located on the first floor of the Ministry of Health building.
He also emphasised that individual hospitals maintain their own local servers, with the ministry’s centralised server acting as a backup hub.
“So that India comment is another misrepresentation and falsehood. The Ministry of Health server is the centralized hub which serves as a remote backup for all the data,” he stated.
Dr. Okoe Boye stressed that Ghana’s health data has always been under the control of the Ministry of Health and accessible locally, countering claims that the information resides outside the country.
He described the public statements suggesting otherwise as misleading and inaccurate.
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