GHS organises training programme for traditional practitioners

Ghana Health Service (GHS) in collaboration with Traditional Medicine Practice Council (TMPC) has organised a training programme for traditional and alternative health care assistants to deliver quality health care in the country.

The capacity building programme was aimed at sustaining public confidence through quality health service and competent human resource as well as upgrade the knowledge and skills of participants among the traditional practitioners.

Mrs Gertrude Avotri, Deputy Director, GHS, in a presentation on the topic: ‘Quality Assurance’ defined it as a planned and systematic approach to monitoring, assessing and improving the quality of health services on continuous basis within the existing resource.

She said quality assurance was important because it would safeguard and improve health of clients and providers, attract and retain clients in an increasingly competitive environment and increase efficiency.

Mrs Avotri explained that quality assurance principles focused on client, systems and processes, teamwork, the use of data and effective communication geared at improving quality care and ensure safety of clients.

She said it was the responsibilities of traditional medical practitioners to examine and take clients history, diagnose clients and follow up on counseling before treating them.

Mrs Avotri said traditional practitioners must strive to meet clients’ expectations by giving them the needed respect, attention and their confidentiality on their health report because they were key components to health delivery.

Torgbui Yaka IV, Registrar of TMPC, said traditional medicine products were used for preventive and curative health in almost every household with about 20,000 traditional medicine practitioners in the country.

He said most traditional medicine practitioners acquired their skills through inheritance and apprenticeship adding that the objective of the Ministry of Health was to integrate traditional medicine into the mainstream health delivery system.

Torgbui Yaka said the code of ethics and standards of practice was aimed at instilling discipline and professionalism into traditional medicine practice, serving as a regulatory instrument for traditional medicine practice in the country.

He explained that code of conduct in the profession was necessary because it would bind the practitioners and represent the standards of behaviours or good practice, and advised the practitioners to observe the code of ethics and practice them.

Mr. Said Al-Hussein, Human Resource Manager-GHS, explained that patients’ charter were a set of written statements by an authority granting certain rights and privileges to patients or clients in respect to access to health facility.

He said the need for patients’ charter was necessary because the rights of the clients must be protected and the right of the individual to an easily accessible, equitable and comprehensible health care of the highest quality.**