Ghana reverse brain drain in the health sector

Koforidua, Aug. 25, GNA - The Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Abraham Dwumoh Odum has announced that Ghana has started experiencing 'brain-gain' in the health sector.

He said due to the good human resource policy put up by the government in that sector, the country had reversed the brain drain and now achieved brain gain.

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has received a lot of applications from Ghanaian and foreign health workers to work in the country, Mr Odum said.

Mr Odum was speaking at the inauguration of the Eastern Regional branch of the Health Workers Association of the Nation (HEWAN); a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) made up of staff of the GHS and affiliated to the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He said at the time the government of President Kufuor assumed office, the Ministry of Health (MOH) had no policy that guided the health delivery in the country and as a result of good policies, that the government put in place, now many development partners were chasing the government to fund the health programme.

Mr Odum said soon, an Italian health group would be coming to establish a centre for the treatment of diabetes and hypertension, at the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

He said the government of President Kuffuor has increased the nursing training institutions in the country from 15 to 54, increased the enrolment at the nursing training institutions from 680 students to 8000 per annum and constructed 205 new hospitals and health centres throughout the country.

Mr Odum said currently there is a committee working on the condition of service of health staff in the country, and assured all health workers that by next year, when all workers would be placed on the single spin salary structure, their salary structure would be place among the essential service staff, which would be higher than the other workers.

He said soon the MOH would come out with a policy for all qualified health workers of the GHS to enjoy fuel allowance.

Dr Arthur Kennedy, Communication Director of the NPP Presidential candidate said if the party won the December elections, the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo would improve the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), to enable the GHS raise the necessary resources to employ more specialists and provide better health care. He explained that, the aim is to turn the country into a place where many people from other countries would prefer to get medical care, to enable the country to benefit from health tourism.

Dr Kennedy said Nana Akufo-Addo would engage 20,000 sanitary inspectors annually, for the next five years to help improve the sanitation situation of the country, and also establish a system to turn the solid and liquid waste of the country into electricity. Mr Yaw Barima, Member of Parliament for New Juaben South, congratulated members of the association for joining the campaign of the NPP to attract more voters, using the service they rendered.

The New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive, Nana Akwesi Adjei-Boateng said it was true that salaries of public workers were not enough, but according to him, they are better off under the government of President Kufuor than under the government of the National Democratic Congress(NDC).

Ms Beatrice Bernice Boateng, the parliamentary aspirant of the NPP for New Juaben South for the December elections called on health workers and teachers to stop any impending strikes because the government has good plans for them.

The national president of HEWAN, Dr Gabriel Boakye said good health care is linked to politics; hence it is the intension of his organization to influence the people they treat to vote for the right people into power.

He appealed to the Ministers and District Chief Executives in the Eastern Region to support the members of the association in the region with logistics, to follow the candidates of the party to the most difficult areas of the region during their campaigns, to enable them render service to the people, for the people to realize that the government cared for them.

Earlier in a welcoming address, the Eastern Regional Chairman of the association, Dr Sampson B. Ofori of the Koforidua Regional Hospital, assured of the association's readiness to offer services at places where the parliamentary candidates of the party went to campaign, provided logistics were provided.

He said those of them who had joined the association have all placed their jobs on the line, and therefore called on the politicians to remember them when they got into power. He complained that, there were some health workers who have worked for ten years as casual workers, without being employed as permanent staff as required by law, and said such situations should not be allowed to continue.