Don’t politicise our job – Hospital Administrators

The Association of Health Services Administrators, Ghana, is calling for an end to the seeming politicisation of their position at Teaching Hospitals in the Country.

According to the Association, Government “must not allow certain individuals’ selfish, unprofessional and Parochial interest to politicize the position of the Health Service Administrator in Teaching Hospitals” since the appointment of the Director of Administration is well defined by Law.

ASHAG says political influence in the appointment of administrators adversely affects management in the Teaching Hospitals.

The outgoing President of AHSAG, Albert Asiedu –Ofei, said this in Koforidua during the 41st Annual Conference of the Association.

The Association has also cautioned government over the newly introduced policy placing a cap on internally Generated funds of some government institutions including health facilities.

Under the new Policy, the institutions will not retain all their internally generated Funds.

AHSAG believes this Policy will deepen the already stressful financial conditions of health facilities in the country which would lead to total collapse of the health system and therefore want government to insulate the health facilities from the Policy.

“On the capping of IGF, even though it could be said that the Policy is not yet fully operational in the health Sector, caution must be taken from the numerous petitions against its implementation as submitted by various stakeholders including AHSAG.

“AHSAG’s position is that the implementation of the Policy would ultimately lead to the total run-down of the already weak finances of the health Institutions …health institutions must, therefore, be allowed to utilize their full IGFs that they generate. However proper accountability through effective auditing must be put in place to ensure value for Money is achieved in the utilization of the IGFs that would be generated,” he said.

Also, the Association has warned against partisan influence over the Health Service Bill adding that any move to undermine certain professional groups in the Service when the bill is passed into Law would lead to apathy.

AHSAG has also called on the Ministry of Health to urgently pass the Legislative Instrument (LI) for the Mental Health Act, 2012(Act 846) so that Health Service Administrators know their role in the delivery of mental health services.

The Eastern Regional Director of Ghana Health Service ,Dr. Charity Sarpong, charged the administrators to have comprehensive all year-round procurement management systems to ensure that health facilities do not run short of logistics.