A collaboration between The Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS) and the Embassy of Ghana in Washington, DC saw a successful conclusion of a three day health conference on Ghana.
The GCPS’s law of establishment was passed by Parliament in 2002 followed by the presidential assent in 2003. With goals of : promoting specialist education in medicine, surgery and related disciplines as well as co-ordinate education and research and also help with the formulation of health and public policy, its interim Rector, Prof. P. K. Nyame, spoke to Ghanaian medical specialists within North America who attended the conference.
With an estimated number of one thousand Ghanaian physicians working in the developed world and two-thirds of the number in the United States, Prof. Nyame thought it prudent to address the physicians not only about the formation of the college but what could be done even as they live outside Ghana to improve the deteriorating health situation. Through their influence, he hopes to build linkages between GCPS and institutions in North America for training attachments and sponsorship of research work as well as endowment fund and fellowship programmes.
But the three day conference also gave some of the participants especially those who have for long not visited Ghana the health profile of the country. According to Prof. Nyame, under five mortality rate is generally regarded as a good overall indicator of the health of a population. Children under 5 constitute less than 20 percent of Ghana’s population but they account for 50 percent of the 192,000 deaths per year.
Data from the Navrongo Demographic Surveillance System from the Upper East Region for example shows that the highest annual risk of death are at the extremes of life and lowest between 5 and 39 years. The causes of death are still familiar according to Prof. Nyame’s statistics: Up to 15 years, Malaria, Anemia together causes 40 percent of deaths. From age 15 years up, injury men, liver disease (men), HIV (women), and tuberculosis take huge tolls. After 45 years, strokes, Hypertension (male/Female) are prevalent while all ages are affected by Pneumonia and Diarrhea.
About 20 years ago according to Prof. Nyame, malaria, measles, sickle cell, malnutrition, gastroenteritis, tuberculosis accounted for 57 percent of the diseases in Ghana. But measles has declined due to improved immunization in childhood while HIV and cardiovascular disease have increased.
The statistics are not encouraging for promotion of good health but that was why the physicians met. Apart from discussing the Ghana Health Status/Overview of the Health Sector, there were group discussions and conclusions by the various specialists on Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, OB-GYN and Radiology.
The specialists themselves acknowledge that as ‘a group we constitute a unique resource of knowledge and expertise unparallel in the history of our country….We are also a patriotic lot.’ Prof. Nyame affirmed these and said, ‘There is a feeling that Ghanaians in the Diaspora are looking for opportunity to assist. To ask them to leave their lucrative jobs and come home is not practicable.’
But to show that they mean their professed patriotism, some of them, highly trained and renowned with some money in their pockets have started the Airport City Hospital in Accra. Dr. Oheneba Boachie-Adjei is founder of Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine (FOCOS) which has a mission of providing optimal free and affordable care for international patients with spinal deformities and disorders of the spine. He has invested over $100,000 in the activities of the Foundation which performs free operation in Ghana yearly. Hundreds have benefited from an estimated $5m treatment cost over the years.
Boachie-Adjei is part of the promoters of the $20m Airport City Project (others are Mr. Albert Osei, Dr. Joseph Akwasi Boateng, Dr. Kwasi Debra, Dr. Ike Thompson, Dr. Nana Kufuor, and Dr. John Addo, Dr. Godwin Maduka (Nigerian Physician) and Mr. Scot Hillegass (an American Healthcare Executive). This project has already started and will at a complete build out, be a 150 bed ultra modern, multi specialty hospital.
The aim according to the promoters is to ‘build an international standard hospital in Ghana with the collective resources of Ghanaian physicians abroad supported by international leading agencies and also create an international medical faculty open to all Ghanaian physicians who will commit at least two weeks out of a year to work in the hospital and make their unique expertise available to the Ghanaian public.’
The eight promoters have so far contributed $1m as equity with the architectural drawings and pre-construction activities paid for. Companies which have so far worked for the promoters and expressed varying degrees of collaborations include Deloitte and Touch?, Philips Medical Systems in Holland, DEG and IFC.
According to the promoters when completed the hospital will also achieve the following: Reverse the direction of medical capital flight without physicians physically relocating to Ghana; the presence in Ghana of a more technologically sophisticated and operationally advanced hospital for the Ghanaian public among others.
These aspirations will continue. Next year the doctors will congregate again at the Embassy to talk and act on these aspirations which the Acting Ambassador and Deputy Chief of Mission Mr. Isaac Aggrey described as laudable.
