The Democracy and Development Fellow in Health at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr Kwame Sarpong Asiedu, has stated that the government is fully within its rights to audit health data systems, describing such data as national security information.
His comments come amid the ongoing standoff between Lightwave E-Healthcare Solutions Limited and the Ministry of Health, following allegations of overpayment and claims that the company had deliberately disrupted healthcare services to frustrate the government.
READ ALSO: Lightwave E-Healthcare rejects Health Minister’s claims of overpayment and service disruption
Lightwave, the firm behind Ghana’s National E-Healthcare Programme and the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS), has denied the allegations, calling them “misleading and unfounded.” The company insists that it has met all contractual obligations and that health facilities using the system continue to operate efficiently.
In an interview with Joy FM’s Kojo Yankson, Lightwave’s Senior Project Manager, Eric Agyei, revealed that the company had not been informed of any official audit, despite reports that the Ministry had sent people to hospitals “under the guise of Lightwave representatives.”
Responding to the matter, Dr. Sarpong Asiedu clarified that while the state has every right to conduct an audit, such an exercise must follow due process and adhere to existing laws.
“Health data is national security data because it contains disease and death rates, prevalence rates, medicines used, and other medical information,” he explained. “The state has every right to audit—from the data controller, which is the hospitals, to the data processor. There’s no problem with the state doing an audit; that is allowed globally.”
He emphasized that Lightwave, as a data processor, does not own the information it manages, and that the data ultimately belongs to the state. “The audit they cannot run away from because they are not the data owner,” he said. “Nobody should delude themselves that the state doesn’t have a right to investigate from the patient through the hospital to the data processor. The law allows the state to investigate end-to-end.”
However, Dr. Asiedu cautioned that if the company’s claim of impersonation during the audit process is true, it raises serious ethical and legal concerns. “If there was impersonation, that is wrong,” he said.
The Ministry of Health is yet to publicly respond to Lightwave’s latest statement. The controversy has reignited broader discussions about data ownership, cybersecurity, and accountability in Ghana’s digital health systems, as the country works to expand electronic healthcare delivery nationwide.
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