Corporate bodies urged to support doctors' fund (Graphic Business)

One of the missing links in the country’s health delivery system is the training of specialised personnel for the country’s hospitals. Most medical doctors have to rely on scholarships from foreign agencies and organisations to enable them undergo various training programmes outside the country.
The the country is very limited to the number of medical doctors that it can send outside to undergo such specialised programmes
It is therefore in this direction that College of Health Sciences has made a passionate appeal to corporate bodies, groups and individuals to contribute to the college’s Post Graduate Endowment Fund for specialist training.
The fund which was established in 2000, is expected to help raise funds to complement government’s effort through the award of scholarships and research grants to postgraduate students.
At the launch of the colleges 10th Anniversary Celebration in Accra, the Chairman of the fund, Mr Sam Okudzeto said availability of specialists in Ghanaian hospitals would help to treat especially, non-communicable or chronic diseases which often affected many of the best brains the country could boast of.
The theme for the celebration was "The College of Health Sciences: A decade of Achievement and future prospects".
Addressing participants at the ceremony, Mr Okudzeto said there was no doubt that non-communicable diseases such as stroke and diabetes, which, he observed, were a threat to chief executives could be controlled if sufficient professionals were trained in specialised fields and made to work in the country.
Institutions which have been contributing to the Fund since its inception are the Ghana Reinsurance Company Limited, Ecobank Ghana Limited, Media Whizz Kids Limited, National Lotteries Authority, Coca Cola Bottling Company and E. N Omaboe and Associates.
Others are Nankani and Hagan Company Limited, Poly Group of Companies, Melcom Group of Companies, Barry Celebout Ghana Limited, KPMG, Visigo Opticals, Ghana Commercial Bank, Far East Mercantile Company Limited, Valco Trust Fund among others.
Mr Okudzeto, who is also a renowned legal practitioner, cited cases of deaths involving some prominent people who travelled abroad for treatment describing them as best brains.
He pointed out that “if we are able to help our health institutions we can get the best health care services without necessarily travelling outside. The rampant death of our best brains can be reduced if we support this worthy cause, ” he said.
He said if enough funds were raised, lecturers, professors and deans would also be supported to acquire additional knowledge elsewhere adding that the endowment fund had had tremendous impact on enrolment into postgraduate programmes. Mr Okudzeto and that since the establishment of the fund, almost all schools under the College had doubled their intake with about half of the students benefiting from various scholarships.
The outgoing Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Clifford Nii Boi Tagoe, said the establishment of the college 10 years ago was a significant landmark in the development of the University of Ghana after several years of hard work.
He noted that with the collective strength of its constituents, which were the Medical and Dental school, School of Nursing, Allied Health Science and Public Health as well as the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, the college had “finally come to the attention of the world”.
Professor Tagoe noted that the college had chalked significant successes and singled out the establishment of the Postgraduate Endowment Fund with some innovative ways of fund raising by Trustees, making it attract students into areas where it was originally difficult to do so.
The Provost of the College, Professor A. L. Lawson, said the challenges of the college were many, including limited budgetary support, poor infrastructure, ageing faculty and inadequate capacity for research.
He said in trying to address those challenges, the college was developing its second strategic plan, embracing the liberation of the college legally, financial empowerment, establishment of a human resource framework, infrastructure expansion and modernisation as well as the development of new activities to compete for growth.