Third Medical Excellence Awards launched in Accra
The third edition of the Medical Excellence Awards (MEA), meant to reward outstanding health professionals in the country, has been launched with a call on healthcare providers to build cordial relationships with patients.
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The Patron of the 2017 awards committee, Archbishop Professor Asafo-Agyei Anane-Frempong, who made the call in Accra last Tuesday, said a focus on interpersonal relationship with patients would facilitate their speedy recovery.
“When workers take care of patients with love and care, it helps them to recover faster,” he said.
The award
The award ceremony, slated for November 24, 2017, is aimed at honouring the outstanding achievement and selfless dedication of health professionals in the country.
The recipients of the awards would be selected from public, private and mission healthcare centres nationwide through an exhaustive research process.
Sponsored by Vanguard Assurance, with support from Airtel, Nationwide Mutual Health (NMH) and PZ Cussons, the award would be on the theme: “Empowering healthcare personnel for holistic and sustainable healthcare delivery.”
According to the patron, the event would be managed by a committee, made up of stakeholders in the health sector.
He urged corporate bodies and individuals to support the programme to motivate health personnel to give their best.
Categories
Eight award categories would be up for grabs. Three awards would be given in each category.
The categories consist of doctors, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, midwives, auxiliary staff, mortuary attendants and the diagnostic sciences.
A technical committee would do the selection after a vote by the public via texting.
The public can vote for their favourite health worker by texting the name and hospital the person works to a short code, 1788 on all networks.
Nominations started in February and will close on July 31, 2017.
Significance
For his part, the President of the 2017 MEA Team, Dr Dauda Titus Amidu Adandada, said “the award is to appreciate and celebrate the health personnel, from specialists and surgeons to the mortuary attendant.”
Dr Adandada said the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme had led to an increase in hospital attendance and had further increased the doctor-patient ratio.
