The Martin Luther King Health Training School in Accra, with the School of Allied Health, University of Ghana, is to conduct an intensive breast cancer awareness and education research to save more women from the disease.

The School has, therefore, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Brookdale Community College and Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, to undertake the research within the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions, as the first phase and later to other parts of the country.

Dr Owusu Achaw Duah, the Director of the School, who announced this at the Ninth Matriculation of the School in Accra, said the Ministry of Health (MoH) had given approval to the School to conduct the research.

It would be conducted under a Fulbright Specialist Programme Grant that was awarded to a Senior Professor of the Brookdale Community College and Rutgers University, Professor Terry M. Konn.

Prof Konn, a professor in Radiology and Public Health, is in the country to start the research project, which the Health Training School has adopted as one of its Women’s Research on Women’s Health.

At the Matriculation ceremony that was themed: “A Skilled Health Professional, a Tool for Quality Health Care,” a total of 203 students were enrolled into various programmes, including Registered Nurse Assistant Clinicals, Laboratory Technicians Programme and Health Careers.

Dr Duah said the school’s main objective was to educate health professionals at both basic and tertiary levels, as it charted a course for students who would be graduated to become critical contributors to the health care force of the communities they served and to the entire country.

He said the School also had plans to upgrade the College Clinic into a teaching hospital status to cater for the practical training of its students as the public hospitals, which accommodated students for practical training were seriously choked.

“We also intend to recruit some of our qualified students to work in our facilities as practicing nurses and technicians and as research and teaching assistants,” Dr Duah said.

He urged the MoH to reconsider its decision of suspending the recruitment of privately trained personnel as that could lead to the socio-economic hardships of such trained personnel.

It would increase in the exodus of trained health personnel seeking greener pastures, he said.

Mrs Hajia Balchisu Iddrisu, the Principal of the Martin Luther Health Training School, said the School continued to soar academically and that at the last Licensing Examination in 2015, the school had 92 per cent passes.

“The school is endowed with highly qualified and permanent tutors who are dedicated to teaching students for positive results,” she said. “Academic work is taken seriously and students are always encouraged to work hard both in theory and practice.”

She said one of the School’s products won the Eastern Regional Best Nurse Award at this year’s International Nurses Day, marked on May 12 in Accra. “This is a great achievement for the School”.

Prof Terry Konn, who gave the keynote address, said healthcare was a profession of honour and honesty, therefore, students should learn hard to become healthcare professionals who would work to restore the health of the sick, while educating them in ways to improve their lives.

“Ghanaian women will continue to die from breast cancer if you do not step up and teach them early prevention and detection,” he said.

“More will die from malnutrition, diabetes or heart diseases if you do not step up and educate them of risk factors, signs and symptoms and ways to prevent these illnesses," Prof Konn said.