‘Stakeholder consultation on financing postgraduate medical training needed
The President of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS), Professor George Wireko Brobby, has called for a stakeholder consultation on how to sponsor doctors who are undergoing specialist training at the college.
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According to him, due to the increasing number of applicants, the question of funding by other stakeholders other than the government had become more imperative.
He said the issue of funding had often agitated the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) when the government refused to sponsor applicants at the college.
Prof. Wireko Brobby was speaking at the official launch of the 10th anniversary of the GCPS, Accra.
The anniversary is on the theme: “A decade of medical postgraduate specialist training”, and a number of activities have been lined up for the celebration, expected to last for two weeks.
Genesis of GCPS
He indicated that after years of the GMA’s advocacy for a postgraduate medical college, the college was duly established by law in 2003.
According to him, Dr Eunice Brookman-Amissah and Professor K. Danso Boafo, both of whom served as ministers of health, helped with the establishment of the college.
During their tenure of office, a task force was inaugurated and charged ‘to explore the feasibility of establishing a postgraduate medical college created out of our own soil for the training of specialist doctors tailored to meet the needs of the Ghanaian society’, he said.
He said Prof K. Nyame was appointed as the first rector of the college.
Achievements of the college
According to Prof Wireko Brobby, since the inception of the college, the migration of doctors to seek greener pastures had been nipped in the bud.
It had also trained specialist doctors in medicine and surgery.
Since the first batch of trainees passed out in 2007, the college has turned out medical specialists every year who are offering specialist medical services to Ghanaians.
Strengths and weakness of the programme
He said the strength of the college lay in its academic programme, as it had initiated a three-year programme in all the specialities, leading to membership of the college.
Funding, however, continued to be a weakness, he said, as there was no sponsorship by the government.
Dr Antoinette Bowan, the Chairperson of the planning committee for the anniversary, enumerated the programmes and activities lined up for the celebration.
