Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Efforts of Ghana Health Service deserve praise

In recent years, the hard work of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has become very visible to the public and all those observ­ing its efforts would agree that both its management and shop-floor workers are generally doing their best to safeguard the health of the people.

We extend special commen­dation to the leadership of the service for their continu­ous efforts.

When the COVID-19 broke out in Ghana in March 2020, for instance, they assured the public that they would do all they could, including collaborations, to contain the pandemic.

True to their word, they succeeded in spite of the challenges, including the refusal of some Ghanaians to go by the measures put in place.

Yesterday the GHS leader­ship announced fresh mea­sures to further safeguard the health of Ghanaians.

One of them is a new ap­proach to healthcare delivery and the other is a cluster of measures to solve the brain drain in the health sector, particularly regarding the loss of experienced and skilled professionals like doctors, nurses and midwives.

The new approach, dubbed ‘Networks of Practice (NoP)’, seeks to improve health care delivery through the existing primary healthcare system, with emphasis at the sub-dis­trict and community level.

The NoP will get a group of public and private health service providers intercon­nected through administrative and clinical management for a better client service, to re­duce unnecessary deaths and ensure rapid and appropriate response to clinical and public health emergencies.

In order to do this effec­tively, all Community-based Health Planning Systems (CHPS) compounds, for instance, will be upgraded to health centres and provided with the necessary logistics and personnel to enable them to function to attain the ex­pected impact.

What is more delightful about the NoP is that it is meant to combat the issues of unnecessary crowds, over-worked doctors and nurses, long distances client cover, more cost incurred and time wasted to access quality health services at district health centres.

We hope the public will embrace the NoP because it is also intended to provide hospitals in sub-districts, communities and schools with the needed equipment and qualified personnel.

We think while the NoP is a lofty approach and takes care of infrastructure and equip­ment, its success depends mainly on a good number of personnel who are skilful and experienced.

This is why we want to commend the GHS for taking the necessary steps to replace personnel lost to brain drain.

For the GHS to lose 525 of its skilled personnel and professionals to brain drain within the last 12 months is something that must be lamented over but not for ever without steps to have their replacements.

Once it is a human institu­tion, the GHS will continue to lose such personnel and what is important is to have measures in place to mitigate the impact of the loss on healthcare delivery.

Therefore we hail the GHS for not sitting unconcerned but adopting measures to re­solve the ensuing challenges.

However, we wish to sug­gest that such measures must include solutions to what cause the brain drain and also stay as a permanent feature of the GHS’ efforts to improve the health of the people.

Kudos to the untiring GHS leadership and may all their efforts yield the intended results and even more.