According to him, a total of 28,000 applied to work for the Centre, out of which 1,400 were selected.

The facility, which has its first phase completed and ready to commence operations, has been dormant many months after former President John Mahama inaugurated the 217 million dollar facility.

[contextly_sidebar id=”rHElBvqzAE4W5CNSyn3XeKcrRyix1jm8″]There is currently a tussle between the University of Ghana and the Ministry of Health as to who should manage the centre.

Whereas the University believes processes leading to the construction of the facility gives it a direct oversight role of the Medical Centre, the current Ministry of Health under the Akufo-Addo government thinks otherwise.

The seeming impasse between the two institutions had led to the facility not being used.

A Deputy Minister of Health, Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu, had earlier said government currently needs about $6 million to make the facility operational, and an additional $50 million to complete the phase two of the project.

But speaking on Eyewitness News on Friday, Mr. Nunoo said the previous government had an adequate plan in place on the way forward for the Centre, adding that all was set for the facility to be operational before the NDC left office.

“Government will pay salaries so we got the Public Service Commission to agree to the establishment of the hospital and 28,000 people applied to be staff of the hospital. We did interviews and the first round of over 1,400 or so people were identified and appointment letters were going to be given. The Fair Wages Commission had also agreed with the salary structure of the hospital and given approval.”

“The Ministry of Finance approved and gave authorization for the university to go ahead and issue appointment letters to the 1,400 or so people who were supposed to be engaged at the level of consultants, specialists, nurses, biomedical engineers, laboratory technicians, sanitary people, I mean everything had been put in place,” he noted.

The former Deputy Health Minister further noted that, what was required was for government to guarantee that while “we are going through all these processes, our water, electricity and utilities will be underwritten against a payment plan for us to service any facility that government gives us.”

He said with this understanding, what was left was for the Ministry of Health was to acquire a loan facility to enable them “complete some empty shell spaces, fully equip the hospital, buy essential drugs and consumables to run the hospital, and also to do further training of staff required to run the hospital.”

He said the plan was that after such processes were completed; they will begin treating few patients and continue expanding until the Medical Centre run at 100 percent capacity.

“So it’s not like we had no plan,” he added.

Stop interfering in UG Medical Centre affairs – Minority to gov’t

The Minority in Parliament has asked government to stop interfering in the affairs of the University of Ghana Medical Centre.

The Minority in a statement said it found it unfortunate, government’s moves to take over the facility since UG had signed an agreement with the Health Ministry, to entrust full ownership of the medical centre to the school.

“…The Minority regards as unfortunate the overt gestures of the Minister of Health to derail well thought out plans by several governments over the years and to claim and wrestle ownership of the Hospital from the University of Ghana. The latter has the mandate to produce quality health professionals for health care delivery and to prosecute research to address national health challenges which ultimately would lead to improved health security for the nation,” the Minority said in the statement.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

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So having been on campus when the competitions begun, I was at one of the outdoor socialisation games held for the schools involved.

I ended up making some new friends with some of them who hoped to enter the University of Ghana.

To my dismay, most of the contestants I interacted with all wanted to pursue Medicine in UG.

We are all familiar with stories of many brilliant chaps not getting into Medical School even with their excellent WASSCE results; or sometimes too, students having to move from KNUST to LEGON during their 2nd or 3rd year to pursue Medicine or vice versa. Two of my own brilliant course mates moved after 2years of nursing school to pursue Medicine in KNUST.

I think Medicine is a great course, however, I believe if we want to be a prosperous nation, we need more and more of world class trained science related professionals such as Engineers of all kinds and other pure science and pure maths related professionals.

Last year a member of Prempeh’s Brilla’ team got 8As but was rejected for UGMS and was given Biomedical engineering instead. He was devastated though his parent were hopeful that he will be successful with a reapplication this year, the public outrage meant a lot.

So I did a little research on biomedical engineering to help my little ‘Brilla’ sweetheart.

In fact in my opinion I found the course more fascinating than his dream medicine course, and foresaw a much more rewarding career life for him if he’s able to at least graduate with an upper in UG and got the chance to further abroad.

With lots of persuasive talking and literal begging at a point, I decided to introduce him to a friend of mine who had done an MSc. in an engineering course at Cambridge University (to be his inspirational mentor) and also got him a level 400 friend of mine ending his biomedical engineering bachelors who was more exposed to the UG system in that respect.

He was encouraged and begun to do his own investigations into the course and found out more details about an exciting career he could build out of biomedical engineering.

He then decided voluntarily, to abandon the plans to reapply to Medical School.
Inasmuch as his parents weren’t too happy over that , they strongly believe in the potential of their son to excel at whatever he decides to do.

He accepted my challenge to him- to aim at graduating with a First Class or at least an Upper: although only 9 people have made it out of biomedical engineering with a 1st class since the inception of the course in 2004/2005 academic year.

So far he’s on track and I believe so much that he would make it.

However, how about all the other brilliant chaps who will not have the encouraging encounter of support and of peaking of their interest in the subjects they have been “dumped in”?

Those who will find themselves in the pure chemistry class, statistics class and the various engineering programs- as medical school “rejectees”?

Should they keep reapplying to Medical School?

Or wait and bait, and hope the new fashionable Graduate Entry Medical Program GEMP will console them?

I think it’s about time we get SHS leavers to know about the wide variety of science course available in our universities; their prospective career paths in the various field, and have them choose these courses freely and willingly- rather than, PUSH them into those (far brilliant) courses as medical school “rejectees”.

In fact I believe the other way round is more probable.

In addition we must find a means of making these courses more student- friendly once they enrol on them.
I don’t know why, but it is very difficult for people (we all knew were very brilliant) to come out of these course with a first class or even Upper divisions.

Not because they stopped being brilliant when they entered university, but because first of all, they are demoralised from the start and to add insult to injury, it seems they must work and learn ( In some case chew baba) to “breaking point” just to excel in these course (which surprisingly are easy for them at the masters level abroad).

This is because majority of lecturers in these course do not teach to “pleasing point” yet they are Over-The-Top hard to please!

I am not sure about KNUST/ UCC but in LEGON the number of Graduates we have from these Science and Maths and Engineering-related courses is nothing to write home about.

The fact of the matter is that the Ghanaian educational system does not support (to satisfaction) pure science, maths and engineering courses in the universities.

The way around it is to make it more easier for brilliant student to get the grades they require to further abroad or home.

Unfortunately however, Some ( In fact most) Ghanaian Lecturers design the course to, as it were, bring out the worst in our brilliant chaps instead of bringing out the best.

The brilliant students end up with Lower or 3rd Class Degrees making it impossible or very difficult to further, and because career paths for these courses are also not advanced in our country, these graduates end up doing far less in jobs which are far below their brain power.

It is a pathetic situation and a vicious cycle which I want us to think about as we celebrate our Brilla boys and girls.

Let’s stand up and Speak about these things.

To Ghanaians:
Let’s not live for only the momentary joy and euphoria the NSMQ brings during those winning moments.

To our headmasters;
Let’s make sure our brilliant contestants and those who are not contesting but are equally brilliant are exposed to the varied options of courses and careers they could build in other fields.

To university management and government;
Let’s give our brilliant chaps a better experience in furthering their various interests at the university level.

To our Lecturers,
Let’s give them the opportunity to provide Ghana with a variety of world class professionals.

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By: Janet Maame Serwaa Arkorful

The writer, is a Student-Nurse, and General Secretary of the University of Ghana Students Representative Council (SRC).

Email:[email protected]
[email protected]

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