Cape Coast Teaching Hospital inaugurates 10-member board
A 10-member board of directors, chaired by Mr Philip Sowah of Airtel Ghana has been inaugurated for the Cape Coast Teaching hospital.
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The inauguration of the board seals the hospitals journey from a regional hospital to a Teaching hospital.
Other members of the board are Dr Daniel Asare; Prof Harold Amonoo-Koufi; Dr Eric Ngyedu; and Mr Emmanuel Adjei-Frimpong.
The rest are Mrs Cecilia Nancy Duedu; Mr Samuel Tieku; Mr Bismark Attah Adjepong; Nana Prah Agyensiam VI; and Mrs Victoria Kakra Brown.
At a ceremony in Cape Coast on Friday, the Minister of Health, Ms Sherry Ayittey said the high deficit of health workers was worrisome to the progress made in ensuring quality health care in the country.
She said currently the country’s doctor/patient ratio stood at 1/1000 and described the situation as “absolutely very distressful.”
The minister’s delay to the inauguration almost led to the postponement of the inauguration of the board for the second time as guests had to sit for over five hours due to a change in her schedule.
When she finally inaugurated the board, she noted that the country needed clear policies on human resources aimed at strengthening health services in a sustainable manner.
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She added that to achieve the Millennium Development Goal on Health, Ghana needed to step up its strategies to ensure that many more health workers were trained for the nation’s health facilities.
She said it was the government vision to make quality health care accessible to all Ghanaians, adding that quality health care for all was constitutional.
She said it was disturbing that after training doctors and nurses, many refuse to accept postings to rural communities and rather board planes to seek greener pastures abroad forgetting that they were trained from the tax payers’ money.
She gave the assurance that the MoH, would continue to work to bridge the gap and ensure equity in health service delivery between the rural communities and the urban areas.
She said the government would establish teaching facilities across the entire regions to train the manpower base of the health sector.
Madam Ayittey tasked the management board of the hospital to device ways of internally generating funds to run the activities of the hospital.
The Central Regional Minister, Dr. Samuel Sarpong said though the hospital was the fourth newest in the country, the facility “aside the provision of quality health service delivery will assist tremendously in the creation of manpower and training of health professionals across the country.”
He said the government was working hard to equip the hospital with modern gadgets to enable it deliver good health care.
However, he said the purchasing of gadgets for the running of the facility should not be the sole responsibility of the government and therefore called on all stakeholders to come on board to assist the hospital.
“I therefore take this opportunity to appeal to all stakeholders and beneficiaries to assist in anyway allowable by donating equipment, cash, etc, to aid this teaching hospital to attain its vision”, Dr. Sarpong stated.
He pledged the support of the Central Regional Coordinating Council to the management board and also challenged members to be innovative in their duties.
“Adopt the best practices which will make the facility comparable to the best teaching hospitals in the world”, he said.
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Mr Philip Sowah assured that the board would work to transform the hospital into an efficient facility. The Teaching hospital would support the University of Cape Coast School of Medical Science (UCCSMS).
Prof Harold Amonoo-Kuofi, Dean of the UCCSMS said the upgrade of the hospital was upon a request from the UCCSMS to support the training of medical students.