Govt would support medical research - Dr Afriyie

Accra, March 9 GNA - Dr Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Health, on Tuesday said the Government would ensure that medical research conducted in the country was given the needed support to enhance quality health care delivery.

"We in the Health Sector recognise operational and strategic research as the key source of information. We therefore expect that every effort will be made to ensure that research work done in Ghana have the highest quality."

Dr Afriyie gave the assurance at the opening of a three-day research dissemination forum to publicize research works conducted by various units and research centres of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in Accra.

The forum is also expected to engender cooperation between research institutions, health care providers and information disseminators to work together in promoting quality health care delivery in the country. He expressed regret that there had not been research information in the formulation of policies and strategies in the Health Sector and said the inclusion of research information in policy formulation would help in handling some emerging problems in the Sector.

"As providers, we have attempted to formulate policies and strategies for handling some of our difficult emerging problems often without the benefit of research information."

Dr Afriyie stated that there was the urgent need for genuine and improved quality research information to ensure the realisation of the medium-term goals and objectives of the Sector.

Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, Director-General of GHS, reiterated the call for the establishment of Medical Research Council to coordinate the various health research institutions in the country.

Prof Akosa enumerated the significance of research in the development of a nation, adding: "Everything we did must be based on evidence and not on speculation".

He said researches conducted by the GHS would be compiled into a medical journal and called on the public, especially the media, to lead in the discussion of the content when it was published.

Professor David Ofori Adjei, Director of Noguchi Memorial Research Institute, advised researchers to display a high sense of tact in their studies and avoid absorbing anything that came their way to ensure that their findings could be backed by evidence.

Prof Adjei called on researchers to adopt mechanism that would enhance collaboration at the national level since that was the only way to "make sure that research conducted would benefit the people in real term."

There was an exhibition of various studies carried out by Research Centres and Divisions of the GHS.