GMA encourages members to accept posting to deprived areas

THE Ghana Medical Association (GMA) says it will encourage its members to accept postings to deprived areas of the country.
The association, however, called on the Government and the Fair Wages and Salary Commission to finalise the draft condition of service document and to implement it with special emphasis on the interest of doctors serving in deprived areas.
This came out during the association’s 51st Annual General Conference in Tamale in the Northern Region, which was held from November 3 to November 8, 2009 on the theme: “Towards a Better Health Care for Ghana: The Human Resource Challenges and Solutions”.
In a communiqué, which was jointly signed by the President of the GMA, Dr Emmanuel Adom Winful, and the General Secretary, Dr Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey, the association also urged district and municipal assemblies to take urgent steps to address the frustrating accommodation challenges by providing adequate and decent residential facilities for health workers posted to deprived areas.
It said deliberations at the conference brought out huge disparities and skewed distribution of the human resource in the health sector to the disadvantage of the three northern regions and other deprived areas in the country which needed to be tackled.
The association also called on the Ministry of Health (MoH), and for that matter, the Government, to put in place a comprehensive package to attract to and retain health workers in deprived areas.
It observed that the lack of health workers remained one challenge currently facing health facilities with regard to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and which had the potential of crippling health care delivery in the country.
To sustain the NHIS, the GMA advised the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to regularly review tariffs while ensuring timely reimbursement of claims submitted by service providers to avoid compromising quality care to clients.
The GMA also touched on the seriously under-resourced health training institutions, the delay in the reconstitution of the dissolved Council of the Ghana Post-graduate College of Physicians and Surgeons, as well as the board of the Medical and Dental Council (MDC), a situation the GMA said affected the operations of the two institutions.
It also called on the Government to resource the health training institutions and to continue to support all post-graduate training programmes within the health sector.
In addition, the GMA called on the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons to streamline its programmes to avoid making the deprived areas more deprived by over-concentrating its training programmes in the teaching hospitals.
“Training should also place emphasis on practical district and community rotation that will result in learning while delivering service, ” it stated.