Between fact & myth: The UHAS dilemma
“There are no structures in this new University of Health and Allied Sciences. It is just something for propaganda that a university has been built.”
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“I have also heard that the whole place is just a forest.”
“Honestly, we did not anticipate that we will even get chairs to sit on.”
“Frankly, Mr Vice Chancellor, when I left Accra, I had no idea I was going to see any of these things; given all the negative things I had heard in Accra about your university.”
In all my work with the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), not a single time have I not been surprised, if not amused, by the significant misperceptions that I often come across about this significant intervention to address our health and human resource gap.
Why this is, I have resolved not to speculate. In one instance of countering fantasies with a little truth, a young lady shot up with surprise, “So, all these things you are saying, how am I supposed to know them? I have heard that there is nothing going on there.”
Armed with a camera exactly a week ago, I trekked to Ho to verify whether a forest had truly overtaken the university since my last visit in January 2014. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
This week’s picture story will, therefore, not have room to discuss the university’s current student population of 523 after two years of existence distributed as follows; 58 physician assistants, 221 in Nursing and Midwifery, 21 in Dietetics, 51 in Medical Laboratory Sciences, four in Speech and Language Therapy and 168 in Public Health.
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I will never talk about the fact that as a preeminent research institution with a strong community focus, the first batch of UHAS students undertook an eight-week community residency programme in 2013 in the following communities – Nkwanta, Hohoe, Sogakope, Battor, Keta, and Ho.
Trapped in a mighty forest, how can I mention that UHAS also has a Students’ Representative Council (SRC) with elected executive? Or that students of UHAS came second in a “Getting to Know Africa” quiz competition this year, losing narrowly to the University of Cape Coast after beating KNUST in the quarter final. I do not even intend to talk about the fact that all senior management staff and an audit report implementation committee are already in place.
With nothing, absolutely nothing going on, how can I say that the School of Public Health opened in September 2013 with its administration and faculty being temporarily located in the Onchocerciasis buildings at the Hohoe Municipal Hospital? Where do we place all the structures that have been built, remodelled, renovated and refurbished for use by students and faculty as lecture and accommodation facilities?
I promise not to talk about the guest house for visiting lecturers; given the large number of visiting part-time lecturers.
And then there is the not-so-small matter of the buildings under construction at the permanent site of the university at Sokode Lokoe, near Ho, under a bilateral agreement with the Chinese government.
Work is going on currently to raise the following: an administration block for the school a multi-purpose hall (auditorium) and a cafeteria; a library, a laboratory teaching block; students’ hostel; two-bedroom semi-detached bungalows for eight families and a generator house.
Of course, the university is not without challenges. Indeed, there are the absent laboratories for science practicals, inadequate classroom facilities, insufficient staff offices and residential accommodation and inadequate transportation for large student numbers.
But today is not for words, just pictures from my journey to Ho.
Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey
www.sodzisodzi.com
Sodzi_tettey@hotmail.com