Ensign Global College holds public lecture

The Ensign Global College, a public health institution in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region, as part of its tenth anniversary, has held a public lecture on the theme: “Celebrating a decade of educating professional and entrepreneur leaders for prosperity’’.

The public lectures, which ended with dinner and award ceremony of individuals who distinguished themselves, were centred on two topics: “The impact of Ensign Global College in the community: “Health-2-Go”, a community health intervention project’’ and “Centre for Global Surgery and Ensign Global in action” were delivered by two lecturers of the college, the Head of Academic Programmes, Dr Stephen Manortey, and the Medical Director of the college, Dr Edward Kofi Sutherland.

Dr Sutherland, whose presentation was on “Centre for Global Surgery and Ensign Global in Action”, emphasised the significant contributions of the Centre for Global Surgery (CGS) and Global College in addressing healthcare inequities in Ghana and West Africa.

He showcased the centre’s three main areas of focus: women’s health, minimally invasive surgery, and quality initiatives in surgical care. He went into detail as to how CGS had collaborated with key partners, including the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana Health Service, Tamale Teaching Hospital and the Ministry of Health of The Gambia, to advance advocacy, surgical training and research projects. 

Pivotal role

As a faculty member of the College, Dr Sutherland also highlighted the institution’s pivotal role in training the next generation of healthcare leaders and fostering innovation in public health and surgery. He emphasised the combined impact of Ensign Global College and CGS on communities through capacity-building, sustainable health interventions and community engagements. 

Research

Dr Manortey in his presentation on the “Impact of Ensign Global College in the Community: “Health-2-G”, a community health intervention project, stated that out of research work done based on primary data, verbal household census and health record extraction, it was estimated that the impact of re-distributing healthcare resources through “Health-2-Go” and under-five mortality rates by comparing communities receiving the interventions standard access to healthcare services were good and encouraging.

He noted that understanding the adaptation of evidence-based interventions from a systems perspective, thus integrating the implementation and systems sciences to guide the scaling of community health workers programme was very key to the project.

According to Dr Manortey, an 80 per cent reduction in clinic visits for uncompleted malaria among children under five years and, a 65 per cent decline in mortality from the project communities indicated that “Health-2-Go” was successfully shifting the burden of care from overstate health facilities to the community level and better connections between children with severe malaria and health facilities ensured those with critical cases received appropriate care.

Testimonies

Dr Manortey concluded with evidence from the communities in Ghana where the project was being implemented that “Health-2-Go” had helped their communities in diverse ways and they had, therefore, benefited from it immensely. ‘’We would like to express our profound gratitude to “Health-2-Go” for the wonderful work they have done in Achina Barekese”.

Earlier in a welcome address, the President of the College, affiliated to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in partnership with the University of Utah, Elon University, University of Oxford and Brigham Young University, among others, Prof. Stephen Alder, said the institution had a vision of producing quality leaders, professionals, and entrepreneurs that would change problems into opportunities in Ghana and the world at large and assured that the Ensign Global College would never deviate from that.

The Founder of the College, Dr Mrs Lynette Gay, who presided over the function, shared her personal life experiences and observations, as well as research work with the gathering, and stressed the need for the College to maintain its core values.