Ghana reports general improvement in doctor ratio
In 2013, the number of doctors on the Ministry of Health’s (MoH) payroll increased from 2,252 in 2012 to 2,615. Consequently, the doctor to population ratio improved from 1 (one) doctor per 11,515 in 2012 to 1 (One) doctor per 10,170 in 2013.
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Though there seems to be general improvement of availability of doctors in health facilities, a substantial number are in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions making the distribution skewed away from the regions and districts.
The continuous improvement in the doctor to population ratio is attributed to the increasing output from the four medical schools in the country which are the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS), the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Medical Science (KNUST – SMS), the University for Development (UDS) Medical School and the University of Cape Coast (UCC) Medical School.
The Greater Accra Region employs more than 50 per cent of all government-employed doctors in Ghana, but more than 50 per cent of these doctors are house officers in training. Of the remaining 669 fully qualified doctors (excluding house officers) in the Greater Accra Region, 294 of them work at the tertiary level that is 285 at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and 9 (nine) at tertiary psychiatric facilities. Another 69 are working at the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and MoH headquarters. A further 26 doctors work in administrative positions at the lower levels of the GHS. The proportion of doctors working in administrative positions therefore stands at 14 per cent.
The nurse population ratio improved by 20 per cent over 2012 but did not meet the programme of work for the 2013 target of 1 (one) nurse to 800 citizens. The national average of nurse to population ratio, however, almost reached the World Health Organisation (WHO) target of 1 (one) nurse per 1,000 citizens.
The rapid improvement of the number of nurses in the system is as a result of increasing intake into existing nursing training schools and improvement in infrastructure of the training schools. While all regions recorded increased number of nurses, the increment was largest in the Ashanti and Greater Accra regions with 1,028 and 882 additional nurses, respectively.
Relatively, the largest increase was in Upper East Region with 50 per cent more nurses in 2013 compared to 2012. One of the reasons for this increase is the enforcement of the guidelines for regional retention. Regions with a tertiary facility can retain up to 90% of all newly trained staff, while regions without tertiary facilities can retain 70 per cent.
The overall picture of the staffing situation reflects a considerable increase in production of health professionals, especially nurses including community health nurses.
Ghana, an English speaking West African country has a population of 25,758,108.
The country is divided into ten administrative regions. These are the Greater Accra; which host the capital city Accra, Eastern Region, Volta Region, Brong Ahafo Region, Ashanti Region, Central Region, Western Region and the three northern regions which. The rest are the three northern regions which are the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern regions. Each of these regions is further broken down into administrative districts. So far there are 275 districts.
The regions are also zoned into the southern sector which is made up of the Greater Accra, Central Eastern, and Volta regions. The middle belt which is also made up of the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Western regions, while the northern belt is made up of the three northern regions; Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions.
The life expectancy at birth in Ghana as at 2014 was 65.75. Male life expectancy is 63.38 years, while females have life expectancy of 68.19 years.
There are three teaching hospitals in the country. These are the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) situated in Accra, the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital situated in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region and the Tamale Teaching Hospital in Tamale in the Northern Region. Aside these teaching hospitals there are several other hospitals and clinics as well as regional and district health facilities in different parts of the country.
In addition to the teaching, regional, district health facilities and clinics, there are also the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds manned by community health officers in all districts. The CHPS strategy which as of 2012 was functional in 1,863 zones was introduced in 2003.
The CHPS is a community-based approach, which seeks to provide health services through partnerships among the health programme, community leaders and social groups.
The CHPS programme was launched against the backdrop realisation that more than 70 per cent of all Ghanaians lived over 8 (eight) kilometres from the nearest health care provider.
Health care in Ghana is supposed to be financed through the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). However, active membership of the scheme in 2013 was 36.8 per cent, an increase of 10 per cent from 2012.
The bulk of public health care services rendered are financed through the NHIS. About 81.9 per cent of all internally generated funds of public health facilities are from the NHIS. Over 80 per cent of total outpatients in public facilities were insured.
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A Daily Graphic publication in collaboration with Ouestaf News and with support from Osiwa.