GHS to ban use of mobile phones among health workers

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) says steps are in place to ban the use of mobile phones among health workers.

The step, according to the Director General of the GHS, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, has become necessary due to the numerous complaints on how health professionals spend time on their phones while attending to patients.

According to him, the new directive which will take effective by the end of the year would improve efficiency in health facilities.

Dr Nsiah-Asare said this last Friday at the inauguration of three new polyclinics in the Greater Accra Region.

“We will soon send letters round on how the system would be run such that when you enter the hospitals or clinics, you will not have access to mobile network and in place of that, we use intercoms or provide other means of communicating if need be,” he said.

Elaborating further, Dr Nsiah-Asare told Accra-based radio station, Starr FM, that, an intercom system would be put in place at the health facilities for effective communication.

“We’ll issue a statement and most of the institutions will have the intercom systems working. In most organizations except in some banks and some corporate institutions, you’ll find most officials of the facilities on their mobile phones.

“In the Western World, in most of the hospitals, networks do not work well to help check some of these irregularities. Intercom systems are used. We’re considering scrambling the network system in the hospitals so health officials cannot use them while at post,” he said.