By: Bright Ntramah
President Akufo-Addo has charged the West African College of Physicians to take steps to decentralize post-graduate medical education in the sub region in order to increase the number of specialists in the region.
He said centralized nature of the training requires doctors to move from the districts and regions to the few teaching hospitals.
“The success of this decentralization rest on the willingness of your college to accredit more facilities outside the conventional teaching hospitals for such training.
“The pandemic has challenged as to take a critical look at some of the routines we have established as norms. Let us apply the lessons learnt to decentralize post-graduate education” President Akufo-Addo noted.
Such doctors according to President Akufo-Addo have to struggle with accommodation, separation from their families and in some instances, relocation of their whole families.
Addressing a conference of WACP at the Cedi conference Hall of the University of Ghana, President Akufo-Addo said doctors produced by the College remain the toast of most advanced countries and this a test to the quality” of “post graduate doctors” who get trained by WACP.
“I cannot ask you to lower your standards, but is it possible to train more and possibly, expand your sub specialty training to cover more areas such as intensive care doctors.”
The West African College of Physicians is one of the professional Colleges of the West African Health Organization, a specialized agency of ECOWAS.
The mission of the College is to improve the health status of populations in the region, accomplishing this through specialist training and delivery of quality healthcare services.
This training utilizes a harmonized training curricula to facilitate their mobility and professional integration in the ECOWAS region.
The purpose of the Annual Scientific and General Meeting over the next couple of days
is to Share experiences and lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic from the various specialties; Explore patient perspectives of the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to health; Discuss health system level challenges and policy implications and Discuss the role of telehealth in medical practice and medical education.
To achieve the proposed decentralization of medical specialists education, President Akufo-Addo, noted that WACP must take steps to give accreditation to non traditional teaching hospitals in members countries.
The centralized nature of the training requires doctors to move from the districts and regions to the few teaching hospitals. Such doctors have to struggle with accommodation, separation from their families and in some instances, relocation of their whole families” President Akufo-Addo said.
“It is my plea that as you deliberate on these implications, that you faction out ways to decentralize training of medical doctors, not only at the undergraduate level, but also at the post-graduate level” the President added.
Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu said the COVID-19 pandemic enable government to expand its health infrastructure.
“Our President after seeing the exposure of gaps in our facilities, boldly went to the market and promised the nation that he was going to put up one hundred and eleven (111) different hospitals in our country such that every particular district in our country will have a hospital.
