New Red Cross Executive Council members elected

Accra, June 19, GNA - A new national Executive Council for the Ghana Red Cross Society (GRCS), headed by Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, Chief Executive Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, has been elected in Accra.

Prof Frimpong Boateng takes over as President of the Council with Dr Frank Nyonator, Director, Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ghana Health Services, as Vice-President and Dr Cecil Sunkwa Mills of the Ghana office of the World Health Organization, as Treasurer. Nana Oye Lithur of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative was elected Legal advisor, with Dr Edward Narh of the Tema Nabita Hospital as Health Advisor and Mr James Dodoo Addy of the "Ghanaian Times" as Public relations Advisor.

Dr Harry Opata, Dr Patrick Quist, Dr Antobre Boateng, all medical officers, and Mrs Hilary Gbedemah, a lawyer and Mr Victor Amaning-Yeboah, a retired educationist, were elected as Council members. In his acceptance speech, Professor Frimpong Boateng noted that since the Red Cross and Red Crescent movements were founded in 1963, their functions had not changed and that they had been providing help in times of crisis and also offering care for the suffering and the needy. Prof. Frimpong Boateng said in some countries, disasters occurred as a result of natural catastrophe, but in Ghana they had become part of the life of the people due to disease, ignorance and poverty. He said Ghanaians ought to be in a state of preparedness in order to provide disaster relief in times of disasters and therefore, appealed to staff and volunteers of the Ghana Red Cross Society to re-organize in a manner to become the foremost disaster management organization in the country.

Prof. Frimpong Boateng said the Red Cross would have to intensify efforts in the area of social work such as building dams, providing seedlings to farmers, water purification and desalination, supply of water to needy areas, and helping the rural people with biogas systems.