The posting of 49 specialist doctors to the district hospitals to supervise deliveries as part of the government's efforts at reducing infant and maternal mortality in the country is being hampered by the lack of accommodation at the district level.

The doctors include specialists in internal medicine, paediatrics, obstetrics/gynaeco1ogy and general surgery.

According to statistics at the Ministry of Health, only 30 pregnant women out of 100 have the opportunity of having their deliveries supervised by specialist gynaecologists/obstetricians in the districts.

As result of the acute shortage of accommodation, the doctors are still at the Korle-Bu and the Komfo Anokye Teaching hospitals where there is over-concentration of specialists.

The Rector of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, "Professor P. K. Nyame, announced this at the fifth general and scientific meeting of members of the college in Accra yesterday.

He said the district assemblies that had entered into a memorandum of understanding with the college and the Ministry of Health had failed to implement their part of the agreement.

Prof Nyame said that was a big blow to the real beginning of higher standards of health delivery in the regions and districts outside Accra and Kumasi.

He said when those specialists were judiciously posted; they would assist with the training of house officers who would be posted in their large numbers to the regional and district hospitals.

The rector observed that the country could not tackle maternal mortality and any other cause of mortality and morbidity adequately if specialists could not be transferred from Accra and Kumasi to the rural areas.

The Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (retd), defended the new National Health Policy which, he said, was based on the basic principles of disease prevention, health promotion, curative and rehabilitation service.

He said some health professionals regarded the adoption of those principles as a simplistic way of confronting the challenges of the health sector.

Major Quashigah said the problem with developing countries such as Ghana was that they sought complicated solutions to simple problems, only to end up with unsustainable results.

He, therefore, urged Ghanaians to keep the environment clean, eat right, exercise their bodies arid be a bit careful at the workplace in order to have a greater impact on the disease burden in the country.

The President of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, Professor S. Ofosu-Amaah, appealed to doctors to be humane and ethical in their medical practice.

He said humanity was the bedrock on which the profession was established, adding that specialists were required to be humane and not use their knowledge to amass wealth and lord it over humanity whom they were supposed to serve with all humility.


Source: Daily Graphic