Accra, Aug. 20, GNA- Dr. Ebenezer Appiah- Denkyira, Human Resource Director of the Ministry of Health said on Thursday that the Ministry would establish new health training institutions and upgrade existing ones to train more health professionals in the coming years. "This year we had to admit only 6,000 out of 30,000 qualified applicants who applied for admission in Health training Institutions throughout the country, which is not adequate to meet our staffing demands," he said.

Dr. Appiah- Denkyira who made this known when he appeared before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee said the Kintampo Field Technicians school, would be upgraded into a university to train technical staff, while two new midwifery schools would be established in Tamale in the Northern Region and Tarkwa in the Western region to beef up the existing schools in the country.

He said the Tamale Teaching Hospital, which was taking shape would train and absorb medical students from the University for Development Studies and other students from the northern parts of the country. Dr. Elias Sory, Director- General (DG) of the Ghana Health Service appealed to the government to consider supporting various health training institutions to expand their infrastructural facilities to admit more students to fill the vacant medical centres. He attributed the brain- drain problem in the country to lack of specialized institutions, which sometimes compel management to send their staff abroad for further studies.

Commenting on strike actions, the DG said anytime health workers embarked on industrial action several millions of cedis were lost to the state and appealed to government to keep in touch with the personnel to avoid future actions.

Mr. Joseph Yieleh Chireh, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, who appeared before the committee called for capacity building for workers engaged in sanitation and environmental activities.