3 doctors posted to Upper East refuse to report

Upper East Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service Dr. Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi has disclosed that three health professionals posted to the region have refused to honour their postings as the region remains in dire need of doctors’ service, with 1 doctor serving 24,124 patients as a ratio, MyNewsGh.com’s Upper West Regional Correspondent has filed.

According to the Regional Health Director, although efforts has been made to convince the health care workers to report to their stations, all efforts have proven futile.

Addressing stakeholders at the 2020 annual performance review in Bolgatanga, Dr. Dzotsi indicated that the region is unattractive and therefore called for a high-level stakeholder approach to address this issue.

“As we are all aware, the human resource remains the most important resource in every organization, but in this region, the acute shortage of critical human resources such as medical doctors, specialist doctors, physician assistants of all categories, midwives, laboratory scientists, pharmacists and many more is not good,” he stressed.

His disclosed how three doctors posted to the region refused to report for reasons known to them adding that they have since taken notice of his number and therefore don’t pick up when he calls.

“When I was posted to the Region, I was given three doctors but they have all refused to come. They have taken notice of my number and so if I call they do not answer. I have spoken to one, he is in Hohoe but the other two are nowhere to be found,” he lamented.

Dr. Dzotsi disclosed that the Region currently had 45 medical doctors and 505 midwives, which was woefully inadequate to provide the necessary quality health services to the people.

Dr. Dzotsi said, “the doctor to population ratio in the Region is 1:24,124, that is one doctor serving over 24,000 people and midwife to women in facility age population ratio is 1:511, that is one midwife serving 511 pregnant women”.