Health Ministry to set up intelligence unit to deal with quacks

The Ministry of Health is to establish a Health Intelligence Unit to help get rid of quacks from the health sector.

A Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Alexander Abban, who announced this in Accra yesterday, said the unit was expected to begin operations by the first quarter of 2020, after consultations with the Ministry of Finance and the National Security.

"That decision was taken because these quacks are causing a great harm to unsuspecting Ghanaians and the ministry cannot allow this to continue any longer," he added.

The deputy minister disclosed this in an interview with the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of the seventh induction and oath-swearing ceremony of newly qualified health practitioners affiliated to the Allied Health Professionals Council (AHPC) in Accra yesterday.

The ceremony was on the theme: " Achieving Ghana's Universal Health Coverage: The role of the Allied Health Professional”.

Functions

Mr Abban said when finally established, the unit would do "clandestine monitoring" of the operations of all practitioners within the health sector to ensure quality service and also clear all charlatans from the system.

"It will also monitor doctors, laboratory technicians and other practitioners in the health sector to ensure quality service," he said.

Quack menace

In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, called on the AHPC to take urgent steps to deal with the menace of quacks who, he said, had invaded the health sector in the country.

"In this regard, I urge all agencies under the ministry and private health facilities to ensure that only qualified and licensed allied health practitioners are employed," he added.

He also advised the newly inducted health practitioners to accept posting to deprived communities in the country to help achieve the government’s universal health coverage target.

 Appeal
The Registrar of the AHPC, Dr Samuel Yaw Opoku, appealed to the inductees to limit the use of strikes and demonstrations to drum home their concerns.

"Many a time when they complete school and clearance for their employment delays, you see them at the Ministries picketing and making all kinds of noise. I would like to appeal to you to use proper channels to get your issues addressed," he said, adding that the Health Ministry should also be proactive to prevent demonstrations by the graduates.

Dr Opoku further advised the inductees to be hardworking, courteous and diligent in their respective fields of work.
For his part, the Dean of the School of Biomedical and Allied Health Sciences of the University of Ghana, Professor Solomon Ofori-Acquah, impressed upon the inductees to demonstrate excellence and innovation in their line of duty and to "set higher moral standards and stick to them".

Inductees

In all, 1,128 graduates who had completed their degree programmes from various allied health training institutions in the country were inducted by the AHPC.

They were made up of medical laboratory scientists, nutritionists, health information officers, optometrists (doctors), disease control officers and dieticians.
Others were health promotion officers, physiotherapists, community mental health officers and diagnostic radiographers.

The rest were dental and medical laboratory scientists (doctors), sonographers, speech therapists, therapy radiographers, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists and medical physicists.