‘Strengthen regulations to weed out quacks’

The Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has called on the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC) to strengthen its regulations to weed out quack health practitioners from the country.

He said the issue was of major concern to the ministry, as unqualified people have infiltrated the health delivery system, particularly medical laboratories.

Mr Agyeman-Manu, therefore, advised the council to team up with the relevant regulatory bodies and agencies to stop the nefarious activities of the quacks.

He made the call at the inauguration of a refurbished building of the AHPC in Accra last Tuesday.

AHPC

The council was established by an Act of Parliament (Act 857, 2013) to regulate the training and practice of allied health professionals in Ghana.

It is responsible for the granting of professional accreditation for all allied health programmes.

Mr Agyeman-Manu said the inauguration of the building demonstrated the ministry’s commitment to strengthen the council to meet its objectives.

He urged the management and staff of the council to ensure regular maintenance of the facility and commended them for their collaboration with the ministry to ensure the timely completion of the project.

The Health Minister, however, directed them to establish offices in the regions to make their services accessible to clients.

“Now that a suitable accommodation has been provided at the national level, I strongly urge the board to assist the management to operationalise Section 150 of the Health Professions Regulatory Bodies Act, Act 857, which enjoins the council to establish regional offices to provide access for clients in the regions,” he added.

Enforce regulations

He also called on the council to up its game to ensure that laboratories and pharmacies were not concentrated in an area.

He expressed concern over the fact that about 55 laboratories had been established in the vicinity of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra and that most of them were sited less than a kilometre of one another.

Rationale

The Registrar of the AHPC, Dr Samuel Yaw Opoku, explained that the council decided to renovate the building to ensure that the place befitted the status of the council.

He expressed the council’s commitment to ensure a strict licensing and registration regime.