Currently, there are 79 districts hospitals with no doctors, and 82 districts without a hospital in the country. Out of the 7,724 hospitals in the country, over 5000 are managed by the Ghana Health Service.

[contextly_sidebar id=”cL0t88BqeAwmNJaJH4NEusqxK6bAGCSH”]Speaking to Citi News, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa tasked the Ministry of Health to ensure a review of the number of students who apply to medical institutions to solve the deficiency in the doctor-patient ratio.

His comment comes at a time when the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in the Ashanti Region has suspended new emergency  shortage of doctors at the facility.

“There should be a dialogue between the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Chief Director, Director General and the Deans of Medical Schools and together we should set standards because if as a lower middle-income country we are supposed to have a doctor to 5000 patients, how do we achieve that in the shortest possible time and for me that is the crux of the matter.”

Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa expressed worry about how successive governments have failed in dealing with lapses in our health delivery systems, noting that, “there is no place you can expect a doctor to attend to 200 patients one morning and expect him to do a good job.”

“One of the tragedies of our health care delivery system is that, as a country, we have not been bold enough to look at our population and the number of various health care categories we need, there is no doubt that our health facilities and delivery systems are woefully inadequate.

“As a country, by World Health Organization standards, 1 doctor is to 5000 patients. Why are we still wallowing around 1 doctor to 10,000 patients.”

“We have University of Ghana medical School SMS in Kumasi, UDS Tamale and Cape Coast Medical School, so by now we should have a considerable number of doctors in the country.

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By: Neil Amartey Kanarku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Increase medical schools’ intake to address doctor deficit – Prof. Akosa appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The Association has been asking government to immediately employ and post over 200 hundred jobless medical doctors in the country.

[contextly_sidebar id=”uEZ0f7rNaE3sgyAeKuuIY3FO9jocvoqP”]These unemployed doctors have been home for about seven months, amidst several appeals to the Ministries of Health and Finance to facilitate their employment, which have not yielded results.

In a Citi News interview, the Deputy General Secretary of the GMA, Dr. Justice Yankson, cautioned government of the long-term implications of its handling of the doctors, within the context of its constitutional mandate to provide Ghanaians with quality healthcare.

He also bemoaned Ghana’s doctor-patient ratio which has one doctor taking care of about 10,000 patients, as against the one doctor to 1,320 patients, as recommended by the World Health Organisation.

“The unfortunate thing is that, there are districts in this country that don’t even have doctors or sometimes, only one doctor serving a whole district. The doctor-patient ratio in this country is still way off the mark.”

“These are people who are ready to work. The difficulty is that, if we don’t take time, we will go back into the era where we had a lot of brain drain in this sector,” Dr. Yankson warned.

Gov’t yet to implement conditions of service

The GMA is also calling on government to fulfill its agreement concerning their conditions of service.

Dr. Yankson explained that, “per what we signed onto, effective January 1, 2016, all aspects of that document should have been operationalized. If we are talking about deadlines, we have gone past the agreed date between both parties.”

“What has happened is that, some aspects have been implemented, and a year and three months down the line, some aspects have not been implemented, and these are the things that are beginning to create problems… We arrived at a common point where everybody thought that this was good enough for all of us. We are playing our part of the bargain. It is up to government to also play their part.”

Health Ministry urges restraint

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has given assurances that it will consider the request by the GMA and work towards addressing their concerns.

The Public Relations Officer for the ministry, Robert Cudjoe, noted that, “we have to hold a discussion on that, and see how best we can address their concerns… we only pray that they exercise some form of restraint.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Neglect of doctors could escalate ‘brain drain’ – GMA appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.