'It is time to establish National Manpower Development Programme for health sector' - Boachie-Adjei

Professor Oheneba Boachie-Adjei Woahene, Founder of the Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine (FOCOS), is advocating the establishment of a National Manpower Development Programme to produce the requisite human resource for the health sector.

He said the goal would be to build the capacities of health workers sufficient to meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) target for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

He made the suggestion at a three-day senior managers' meeting of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in Kumasi.

The meeting was to take stock of the 2020 performance of the Service, discuss the shortfalls and how to address them and also build on the achievements and best practices for efficient health delivery, going forward.

The theme for the three-day meeting was "Strengthening Service Delivery and Sustainable system for Health Amidst COVID-19 and Beyond to Achieve Universal Health Coverage".

Prof. Boachie-Adjei who is also the Asantehene’s Hiahene, said the establishment of the Manpower Development Programme would encourage the training and development of nurse practitioners, physician assistants and ancillary health professionals to efficiently diagnose and treat diseases.

"Making requisite investments would make it attractive for healthcare providers to stay in the country to reduce brain drain", he pointed out.

He underlined the need for the government to leverage private healthcare providers through meaningful public-private partnership strategies to support and complement efforts of the government.

Dr Patrick Kumah Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the fact that investing in health for all was not optional.

"We can only achieve a healthy country when no one is left behind and we must therefore seize every opportunity to achieve our Universal Health Coverage target and ensure a healthy population".

He said the meeting would, among other things, offer a platform to discuss strategies for achieving access to timely, quality and comprehensive healthcare services for all communities.