KNUST School of Medical Sciences expands admission
Admission to the School of Medical Sciences (SMS) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is to be expanded this academic year, following the release of the four state-owned satellite hospitals in Kumasi to the university for the training of doctors.
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The facilities — the Suntreso, Tafo, Manhyia and Kumasi South hospitals — will also be used for research.
The Ashanti Regional Director of Health, Dr Aaron Offei, told the Daily Graphic in Kumasi yesterday that his outfit signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to that effect with the KNUST last Monday.
Over the years, the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) had served as the only facility for clinical training of medical students at the KNUST.
The increasing number of students, with its attendant pressure on the facilities at KATH, necessitated the need for KNUST to explore the use of satellite institutions in the region to support clinical training and thereby relieve the pressure on KATH.
The SMS had been graduating an average of 130 doctors a year, but with the new arrangement, the number is expected to go up, as more qualified students will be trained as doctors.
Dr Offei stated that the strategic partnership between the two institutions was a win-win- affair.
That was because while the hospitals placed their facilities at the disposal of the university to train student doctors, the specialists who would be training the student doctors would also offer services to patients at the hospitals, he said.
Apart from that, the trainee doctors would provide services for patients when necessary.
Dr Offei expressed gratitude to the SMS for the opportunity to form a symbiotic partnership with the health sector.
He said he had signed the MoU, aware of the infrastructure challenges of the hospitals.
“But this is an important matter, as it borders on the training of doctors, and we can only put the available facilities at the disposal of the university,” he stressed.
The KNUST was represented at the signing ceremony by its Vice-Chancellor, Prof W.O. Ellis, and the Provost of the College of Health Sciences, Prof E.T. Agbenyega.
By Kwame Asare Boadu/Ghana