‘Rescind decision not to recruit privately trained health personnel’
An appeal has gone to the Ministry of Health to rescind its decision to suspend the recruitment of privately trained health personnel.
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The Director of the Martin Luther Health Training School, Dr Owusu Achiaw Duah, who made the appeal, said the decision, as it stood, would heighten socio-economic hardships in the country, as it would not only demoralise people who graduated from private health institutions but also affect the operators of such institutions.
“It could also lead to an exodus of trained health personnel to seek greener pastures in other countries and that will negatively affect the development of the country,” he added.
Dr Duah made the appeal at the matriculation of 203 students to pursue three main health-related courses in the school.
Cancer research
He announced that the school had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Brookdale Community College, New Jersey, USA, to conduct research on breast cancer awareness in Ghana.
The research, which is part of a women’s health research project, is being conducted with the collaboration of the School of Allied Health, University of Ghana, with the approval of the Ministry of Health.
Breast cancer has been identified as the second leading cause of cancer deaths in Ghana, with about 2,900 cases being diagnosed annually and at least one out of eight women with the disease dying.
Figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) have revealed that 2,000 Ghanaian women were diagnosed with having breast cancer in 2012.
Dr Duah explained that the research was part of a curriculum for the practical training of students and to create awareness of the disease.
In particular, it was to make women know that breast cancer could be prevented with early detection, he said.
He said the MoU was also part of plans by the school to establish an institute for biomedical and public health research which would focus on both communicable and non-communicable diseases.
The school
The Martin Luther Health Training School, which started in 2007, has been offering two-year registered nurse assistant clinical, laboratory technicians and health career programmes.
The Principal, Hajia Balchisu Iddrisu, said the school, which started with 45 students, currently had a population of 500.
In the 2015 licensure examination, she said, it scored 92 per cent, with only six out of the 75 students from the school who took part in the examination being referred.
The Guest Speaker at the event, Professor Terry M. Konn, a professor of Radiology and Public Health at the Brookdale Community College and Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, urged the students to take their studies seriously and ensure that they lived by the ethics of the profession.
He said the lives of many could be saved if health professionals were able to educate patients on how to stay healthy and prevent diseases.
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