66TH GMA general conference underway at Sokode-Lokoe

The 66th Annual General Conference of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) is underway at Sokode-Lokoe in the Volta Region.

More than 1,000 members of the association are attending the week-long event which is on the theme: ‘Fostering technology, entrepreneurship and professionalism in Ghana’s health sector.

The meeting which took off  last Monday was officially opened yesterday

The New Patriotic Party’s vice-presidential candidate, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who opened it, said it was time Ghana committed greater zeal and more resources to the training of medical specialist doctors to meet the health needs of communities.

He said that would also enable the health system to assign family health specialists to smaller health facilities, including Community-based and Health Planning Service (CHPS) compounds.

“We need more specialists in the hospitals to carry out quality health delivery to the citizenry,” the guest of honour explained.

Dr Opoku Prempeh touched on health infrastructure and said ideally a well-resourced public works department should undertake the construction of hospitals while the Ministry of Health focused on the provision of quality healthcare to the public.

“Similarly, the public works department must also put up classroom blocks, while the Ministry of Education concentrates on providing quality education,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dr Opoku Prempeh entreated medical doctors to seek leadership roles outside their consulting rooms, saying by their training doctors were versatile development materials in other sectors as well.

For instance, he said more doctors could be trained to lead the tourism sector and work with other stakeholders to make impact.

Dr Opoku Prempeh said in the quest to meet the health needs of the people, the government facilitated the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) to be a leading research institution dedicated to community service.

He advised members of the GMA to leverage on technology to broaden their scope and collaborate with their colleagues to enhance their efficiency on the job.
                     
Minister of Health

The Minister of Health, Dr (Med) Bernard Okoe Boye, said the government was committed to the capacity building of doctors to ensure quality healthcare.

He said data protection of the highest global standard was a priority to the government.

Dr Boye said the Ministry of Health respected the GMA as an important partner in health service delivery.

For that reason, the government would always listen to the association, “even when we sometimes disagree with them,” he affirmed.

The President of the GMA, Dr (Med) Frank Serebour, said technology might not be the panacea for all the medical challenges, but it surely added a lot of effectiveness to the practice of medicine, especially in the field of diagnostics.

He said although there seemed to be a future war between humans and artificial intelligence, there were clear indications of a future in which technology was more friendly than adversarial to humans.

The GMA president urged members of the association to adopt the strategy of working hard to create other income streams for themselves.

“We should at least be able to trade among ourselves, promote each other’s businesses and come out with proposals to create group practices, among others.

A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Professor Dr (Med) Agyeman Badu-Akosa, touched on ethics and said it was about the concept of right or wrong, and moral principle guiding behaviour.

Hence, he urged members of the GMA to do the right thing at the highest level of the game, all the time and to all manner of persons.

The Regional Minister, Dr (Med) Archibald Yao Letsa, entreated medical practitioners to uphold the values of their profession, while embracing technology to improve treatment outcomes.

The conference topics include: Leveraging AI technology in health, starting and managing a sustainable group medical practice, upholding professionalism in today’s medical practice, and up-scaling telemedicine and E-Health to improve health outcomes.