No posting for new Medical Doctors

Most newly-trained medical doctors who completed their housemanship in 2014 are sitting at home waiting to be employed by the government.

New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Effiduase/Asokore, Frank Boakye Agyen, made this known in Parliament after asking the Minister of Health, Alex Segbefia, on Wednesday whether the ministry has been able to employ all newly-trained Ghanaian medical doctors and where those doctors have been posted to.

The MP said he was moved to ask the question because he is aware that most of the newly-trained doctors were sitting at home while work load on the limited qualified doctors at the public health institutions where the ordinary Ghanaian can cheaply access medical care piled up with some doctors overworking themselves.

“In certain emergency situations at our hospitals, doctors are not enough or even available to attend to such emergencies,” he said, adding that it seems the government does not have the money to employ more doctors which, according to him, is a worrying situation.

Mr Segbefia, however, in his answer stated that the ministry had posted 486 medical doctors since September 2014 and that the number was made up of dental and medical officers from all medical schools in the country and abroad.

According to the minister, out of the 486 doctors, 268 were posted between May and June, this year while the remaining 218 were posted in September, 2014.

He said all those new doctors were posted mainly to the teaching hospitals and regional hospitals for a year housemanship in compliance with the Medical and Dental Council’s requirement before they could be reposted.

When the minister was asked to provide the breakdown of the number of new medical doctors posted to the various teaching hospitals and regional hospitals, the minister could not but pleaded for some time to be able to provide that information.

He, however, admitted that the recruitment exercise delayed because of the new biometric system of registration and also to ensure that new medical doctors would not be posted without being paid their salaries.