Ghana’s private doctors push tax waiver on cancer equipment as treatment gap widens

Ghana’s private medical practitioners are pressing the government to remove import duties and taxes on advanced cancer diagnostic equipment, arguing that the fiscal cost of such concessions could be outweighed by the economic and public health benefits of expanding access to early diagnosis and treatment.

The Society of Private Medical and Dental Practitioners-Ghana says the high cost of importing equipment such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) scanners has become a significant barrier to private investment in specialised healthcare.

The intervention comes as Ghana confronts a growing cancer burden, with the Society citing about 28,000 new cases and 18,000 deaths annually — figures that highlight both the pressure on the country’s health infrastructure and the broader economic consequences of premature mortality.

Speaking during a media engagement at the Society’s 2026 Annual General Meeting in Ho, its president, Dr Andre Kwasi-Kumah, said private providers were willing to invest more heavily in cancer care but required a more supportive fiscal and financing framework.

“As custodians of the state, we understand the government’s concern and wish to ease the financial burden of cancer burden on the citizens of Ghana. The challenge however is, such advance high equipment come with heavy financial overheads. We therefore want to suggest to government to waive off import duties and taxes on such items,” he appealed.

The proposal presents policymakers with a familiar fiscal trade-off: protecting customs and tax revenues in the short term against encouraging capital investment in a healthcare system where the state alone is unlikely to finance all the infrastructure required.

Tax policy as health investment

Advanced diagnostic equipment represents a substantial upfront capital expenditure. Beyond the purchase price, providers must contend with shipping, taxes, installation, specialised buildings, maintenance contracts, electricity requirements and the recruitment and training of skilled personnel.

When import duties and other taxes are added to these costs, healthcare providers may have little choice but to pass part of the burden on to patients through higher diagnostic fees.

That creates an affordability problem in a country where households already shoulder significant portions of some specialist healthcare expenses.

Removing or reducing taxes on qualifying medical equipment could therefore have effects beyond the balance sheets of private hospitals. Lower capital costs could encourage additional investment, expand diagnostic capacity and potentially increase competition among providers.

For cancer patients, the economic consequences could be particularly important.

Early diagnosis can significantly affect treatment options and costs. When patients arrive at hospitals with advanced disease, treatment can become more complicated, prolonged and expensive, while families may suffer income losses from caring responsibilities and reduced labour participation.

The Society warned that many Ghanaians continue to seek help from prayer camps and herbal practitioners before accessing formal medical treatment, contributing to late presentation.

Although the government has introduced measures intended to make cancer treatment more affordable, private doctors say awareness remains insufficient.

This means Ghana’s cancer challenge is not solely a question of hospital capacity. It is also a problem of public education, affordability, screening infrastructure and confidence in the formal healthcare system.

Private capital could fill infrastructure gaps

Dr Kwasi-Kumah also wants the government to consider financial guarantees or dedicated budgetary support that could help private healthcare providers obtain bank financing for expensive medical equipment.

Such an arrangement could be significant because specialist healthcare investments often require long repayment periods, while commercial lending conditions may make large capital purchases difficult for smaller hospitals and diagnostic centres.

Government-backed guarantees could reduce lenders’ perception of risk and potentially unlock private capital without requiring the state to purchase and operate every scanner itself.

However, such guarantees would need careful design. Poorly structured guarantees can eventually become contingent liabilities for the government if borrowers default.

A credible framework would therefore require strict eligibility criteria, transparent procurement, minimum service standards and mechanisms ensuring that tax concessions ultimately translate into greater access and more affordable services for patients.

One option could be to link concessions to measurable public benefits, including reduced diagnostic charges, participation in national insurance arrangements or commitments to provide specified services to lower-income patients.

Cancer’s wider economic cost

The debate also illustrates why healthcare expenditure increasingly needs to be viewed as an economic investment rather than simply a social-sector cost.

Cancer deaths among working-age adults can reduce household income, weaken productivity and increase dependency burdens. Families can also exhaust savings or sell assets to finance prolonged treatment, deepening financial vulnerability.

For Ghana, expanding domestic diagnostic capacity could additionally reduce the need for some patients to seek specialised testing or treatment abroad, helping retain healthcare expenditure within the domestic economy.

A stronger local oncology ecosystem could stimulate investment in diagnostic centres, laboratories, pharmaceuticals, specialist training and medical technology maintenance.

Yet equipment alone will not solve the problem.

MRI and PET-CT scanners require radiologists, nuclear medicine specialists, oncologists, medical physicists, technicians and reliable supporting infrastructure. Tax incentives would therefore need to form part of a broader national strategy covering human capital, screening, insurance coverage and sustainable financing.

With about 28,000 new cancer cases and 18,000 deaths being cited each year, the economic case for earlier intervention is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

The question for the government is therefore not merely whether Ghana can afford to surrender some tax revenue on imported medical equipment, but whether the country can afford the longer-term economic and human cost of insufficient diagnostic capacity.

For private doctors, the answer is increasingly clear: fiscal policy should be used to lower the barriers to healthcare investment before Ghana’s growing cancer burden becomes considerably more expensive to manage.