A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa believes the new quota system to be used in employing medical doctors and dentists in the country will serve its purpose as long as it is devoid of tampering.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, he lauded the Health Service’s move and urged that it be “implemented to the letter.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”NKsj43rRASwmzm4HS1Ecg05bU4Na7DQM”]“It is important that at this stated, everybody who is trained is made available to this country. We have clearly indicated many years ago that every specialty must even have quotas that every hospital knows that it can employ one physician, it can employ a pediatrician, it can employ a surgeon, and with that goes with the extra number of doctors. That is what should happen so that, now, the facility advertises and they appoint.”
Despite this policy being well-intentioned, Prof. Akosa indicated it could still be corrupted at the implementation stage.
“One of our problems is that, all these things will be fine on paper but when it comes to implementation, it will be botched because, somebody’s son or somebody’s daughter, when they have got to apply somewhere, somebody goes in to go and fix things.”
“For once everybody should not be above the law but everybody should be within the law and let us see if that will work. I hope to God it works,” He said.
The Director-General of the Service, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, is optimistic the quota system will help check the practice where young doctors posted to rural areas reject such appointments, which is known to happen.
He noted that most young medical officers and dentists are reluctant to accept postings to work in such needy areas after their housemanship, when he made the announcement at a graduation ceremony at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
President Nana Akufo-Addo himself has even had to urge young doctors not to see postings to rural areas as punishment but treat it as a way of contributing to the development of Ghana.
–
By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana