After discovering the manpower deficit in the various health facilities in the three Northern Regions of Ghana, the authorities at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale, have unveiled plans to churn out well trained personnel to solve the huge challenge posed by the lack of medical doctors.
Records from the Northern Regional Health Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has it that the region has only 43 qualified medical doctors manning over 200 health centres spread across the 20 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
Besides, most of the 275 midwives and 542 nurses are due for retirement whiles about 50% of these personnel are above 50 years of age.
The situation has exacerbated health problems such as malaria, meningitis, hepatitis, HIV, unsafe abortion, maternal mortality, infant deaths, among others which are being reported on daily basis at the health facilities thereby leading to too much work load on the few workers.
This has further raised concerns over whether Ghana can achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4, 5 and 6 which are very critical determiners of Ghana’s economy. According to most social and development workers, Ghana can never achieve the MDG targets since enormous challenges exist in the North and would take time and a lot of resources to deal with the situation.
At the first ever press soiree held at the residence of the newly appointed Vice-Chancellor of the UDS, Professor Haruna Yakubu, said the university is poised to become the best in Ghana and the West African Sub-region under his leadership.
My vision for UDS is “To provide continuing leadership in the areas already developed and to further develop the university into a practically-oriented institution which is internationally recognized for academic excellence and community development”, he stated.
Prof Yakubu also disclosed that one of his major priorities was to ensure that the students at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences of UDS stayed in the school for their Clinical studies rather than going to Korle-bu and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospitals IN Accra and Kumasi respectively.
He admitted that although the faculty of Medicine lacked the needed facilities, the UDS he stated was much capable of providing its students the clinical knowledge needed to complete their course, adding that “the university is also preparing to put up a hospital on the campus of the medical school where specialists will be trained to train students and also deal with critical health problems”.
It is estimated that the University spends as much as over 300,000 Ghanaian Cedis or three billion old cedis every year on the training of medical students. Most of its lecturers are often flown in from other sister institutions on weekly basis to train students.
Asked why the medical school was not autonomous like the other medical schools in the country, the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University for Development Studies, Prof David Millia, categorically stated that making the school autonomous would attract additional fees which will also defeat the core objective of offering opportunities to the less endowed.
According to him, the medical school gets most of its funds from the other three campuses and therefore, it is not a wise decision to make it autonomous now.
Established in May 1992 by PNDC Law 279: It began academic work in September 1993 with the admission of thirty-nine (39) students into the Faculty of Agriculture, (FOA), Nyankpala.
The Faculty of Integrated Development Studies, (FIDS), Faculty of Planning and Land Management (FPLM) and Faculty of Education, Law and Business Studies (FELBS), Wa, School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), Tamale, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources (FRNR), Nyankpala, Faculty of Applied Sciences (FAS), Faculty of Computational and Developmental Mathematics (FCDM), Navrongo and the Graduate School now in Tamale were phased in from 1994 to date.
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