Tamale Teaching Hospital Gets €1M ICT Facility

From Left: CEO of TTH Dr. Sagoe in Suite Looks on as Adu-Twum (1st Right) Explains How Machines work

A sophisticated state-of-the-art Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) facility worth €1million Euros has been set-up at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) in the Northern Region of Ghana.

The initiative is intended to let management and staff of the hospital move from the overdependence on paper to process documents/data to an alternative and more secured medium driven by a technology that allows volumes of such important data and documents to be stored.

This new innovation single-handedly initiated by a Ghanaian Computer Networking Engineer based in The Netherlands Clement Adu-Twum, with support from ROC Mondrian, an ICT company based in that country, makes the TTH the first health institution in Ghana and probably in West Africa, to have such a huge wide area network facility that would also facilitate the practice of telemedicine.

Disclosing this to a group of journalists during a tour of the facility, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the TTH Dr. Ken Sagoe, said Mr. Adu-Twum aside donating such an expensive facility, led an eight-member team of ICT experts and students to the hospital to provide training to some staff so as to boost their understanding of the whole setup for proper use.

Room Containing Equipments Donated to TTH

He commended the donor and promised to put the facility to proper use because TTH was only privileged to have benefitted that much and could not afford to misuse anything.

The components of the ICT facility include over 200 high-speed flat screen computers, 30 computer laptops, 10 dell power edge servers, 23 cisco core switches, 3 information flat screens, 54 cisco wireless points, 60 printers and over hundred office chairs and tables.

The CEO of TTH Dr. Ken Sagoe also expressed his appreciation to Vodafone Ghana for extending to the hospital a free fibre optic cable worth GH¢58,000.00 to make the building of the ICT facility possible.

On his part, Mr. Adu-Twum said he could not take credit for the donation because he felt it was partly his responsibility as a Ghanaian to also contribute his quota to the development of the country considering the enormous expertise he had acquired in his stay abroad.

He appealed to his fellow countrymen abroad to endeavour to assist institutions back home with their expertise and resources that they have at their various places of work which they might not need again.

Mr. Adu-Twum also thanked the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Migration for Development in Africa (MiDA) under whose project his plan to help Tamale Teaching Hospital materialized. 

First Batch Of UDS Medical Doctors Takes Hippocratic Oath

Sir. Dr. Edward N. Gyader, Dean, UDS SMHS

The first batch of medical doctors trained by the University for Development Studies (UDS) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), has been inducted into the Medical and Dental Council, as they begin their two years housemanship program at the Tamale Teaching Hospital and some district hospitals in the Northern Region of Ghana.

The 27 medical doctors made up of 14 females and 13 males, took the Hippocratic Oath and National Pledge which were administered by the Chairman of the Ghana Medical and Dental Council and the Northern Regional Minister, Dr. Eric Asamoa and Moses Bukari Mabengba respectively.

The occasion marked the successful graduation of the medical doctors who spent nearly eight years to study various courses both in theory and practicals/clinicals in the school and at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) as well as some district hospitals under the supervision of experienced specialists/consultants. 

Indeed, this would not had been a success had it not been one of Ghana’s and Africa’s most revered and experienced surgeons, Sir Dr. Edward N. Gyader, who after retirement from the Ghana Health Service following many decades of successful medical practice in the Upper West Region, was called to duty again by the management of the UDS to head the SMHS.

According to the Catholic Knighted Personality, he was given the task to recall these graduates who were sitting at home for a long time without any clear future and find them a place to start their clinical training. This was because; the then medical students were not given the usual opportunity by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and University of Ghana Medical Schools to do their clinical training due to serious constraints facing the two institutions, Dr. Gyader added.

Dr. Gyader revealed that a team from the Medical and Dental Council (MDC), who visited Tamale as part of their routine inspection, insisted and encouraged the school to start the clinical training at the TTH with all the anticipated challenges. Adding that, the second problem he was expected to tackle was to draw up a comprehensive curriculum to ensure that the school runs according to the format laid down by the MDC. “Both assignments were duly executed and the students were called back to begin a six month bridging programme in chemical pathology, general pathology and neuroscience”, he confirmed.

The Dean of the UDS/SMHS paid glowing tribute to the KNUST and University of Ghana Medical Schools saying “We relied on them for part-time lecturers and external examiners and they never let us down. I am confidently presenting these new doctors to you knowing very well that with the external eyes provided by the senior medical schools, there was enough confirmation that we were moving on the right track.”

Sir Dr. Edward Gyader reiterated his call on all well wishers that the school urgently required a library with offices attached at the TTH to enable staff perform better than they had done so far. 

Prof. Haruna Yakubu, Vice-Chancellor, UDS

The Vice-Chancellor of the UDS Professor Haruna Yakubu disclosed that plans were far advanced to provide library facilities at the TTH and stressed on the need for the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to assist the university complete some of the projects earmarked for the TTH.

He also appealed to the MDC and the Ministry of Health to post some specialists to the TTH so that they could make their services available to the students.    

Established in 1996, the UDS School of Medicine and Health Sciences like other medical schools in Ghana had been using traditional curriculum to train her medical students. But there had been a change over to the Problem Based Learning (PBL) methodology since September 2007. 

The rationale for this change over to PBL lies in the mission statement of the University, "A School of Medicine and Health Sciences Situated in Northern Ghana with a unique mandate to prepare health professional and scientists, with the right beliefs and attitudes to work in deprived rural communities, using the Problem Based Learning and the Community-Based Extension Service approaches. A crop, who can, and are apt to adapt to, initiate change and collaborate within interdisciplinary teams to contribute significantly to humane and cost effective healthcare."

The PBL allows for some interactive teaching and moulds a holistic medical student beginning from year one. The programme involves the use of several district hospitals and their consultants/specialists and exposes students as well as takes medical care to the rural communities. 

Thus, the 27 graduates were awarded degrees in Human Biology and Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (M.B., ch. B). They are expected to get their license to practice as full medical doctors after their two year housemanship.

HIGH COST OF DOWRY IN BONABOTO, BAWKU AREAS FINDS SOLUTION

Naba Bosongo-Dogumpoeya (L) and Puanab Alasbuudi (R)

About three decades ago, payment of dowry or performance of customary marriage rites of a young woman in the BONABOTO and Bawku Traditional Areas in the Upper East Region of Ghana, was not a problem at all to any prospective married man. 

Cows, which are mainly required in terms of resources for the payment of the dowry of a woman to her family, were in abundance and readily available for men to use to perform such rites. Indeed, oral history has it that, in the past it was acceptable for a man to pay the dowry of another man who has not got the four cows as required by tradition.

But currently, the lack or high cost of cows is making it extremely impossible for women and men, seemingly burning with the passion of love to get married. Besides, the problem is also discouraging men from other tribes and traditional jurisdictions, who finally express interest in marrying young women in the area. For instance, one marriage-cow is equivalent to seven sheep and in monetary terms, cost between GH¢300.00 and GH¢400.00.  

In an interview with the Paramount Queen Mother of the Bawku Traditional Area, Puanab Alasbuudi and a Senior Divisional Chief of Nyariga Traditional Area, Naba Bosongo-Dogumpoeya, they told Savannahnews that the high cost of dowry was denying many young men and women the opportunity to get married, and further escalating the population of single parents and causing broken homes in both areas which was a bad omen to their family systems.

Both Traditional Authorities also confirmed that the problem was increasingly leading to reckless sexual lifestyles, thus making victims involved brought forth bastards, engaged in unsafe abortion practices, and faced the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections among others.  

Speaking to the paper on the sidelines of a two-day workshop organized in Tamale by Participatory Development Associates, a civil society organization (CSO) to enhance the relationship between media practitioners and Traditional Authorities in Northern Ghana for effective development, they said no man in the area wanted to marry the young women because of the pricey dowry involved, adding that men often came around, took advantage of them and when they became pregnant, they denied responsibility. 

They explained that even in situations when a man accepted responsibility of a woman’s pregnancy and took her to his house to stay with him till she delivered, they lived together afterwards for many years with the man still unable to dowry her.  

Some of the men, the Bawku Puanab said, even thought that they bought the women they married when eventually they were able to get the four cows to dowry them, saying “that is not good as it makes the women serve as slaves to the men in the marriage. Also, the benefit of the marriage is that all four cows go to the father of the bride. But sadly, some of them use the cows to marry again and this has led to increase in polygamous marriages in the area.”

The Queen Mother further disclosed that there were situations one could find a woman marrying for about three to four times. “For instance, when a woman marries a man who has been able to pay two cows, the parents of the woman could later ask her to marry another man who also has two cows.” 

Meanwhile, light seemed to be at the end of the tunnel as BElim-Wusa Development Agency, a Bawku based CSO recently took the matter up as a serious advocacy issue. The advocacy, this reporter gathered, brought together Traditional Authorities, Opinion Leaders, Assembly Members and all who matter, to try to find a lasting solution to the looming marriage drought.    

Following the advocacy program, which the Bawku Puanab and Chief of Nyariga corroborated, a committee was formed to look into the matter and made recommendations that could possibly and permanently address the problem of high cost of dowry.

According to the two Traditional Authorities, the committee’s report eventually recommended that the four cows initially charged as payment for dowry should be reduced to two, which all the Traditional Councils in the BONABOTO and Bawku areas unanimously endorsed.

To further give it an impetus, the report had since been endorsed and duly recognized by the Upper East Regional and National Houses of Chiefs.

ActionAid, Farmers Ask Govt to Spend More to Boost Food Production

Comments resulting from painstaking research conducted by ActionAid-Ghana reveals, that Ghana has achieved sustained economic growth in the past two decades but this has largely bypassed the three regions of the North – Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions, and inequality between South and North has widened. On the current growth path, the report says national poverty will fall from 28% to 16% by 2015, but in the North from 63% to 49%.

Thus by 2015 two-thirds of all poor Ghanaians will live in the North, highlighting the need for targeted interventions. Recognizing the interventions of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority and the Northern Rural Growth Programme, the report says it is important to note that farmers in the three regions are overwhelmingly subsistence farmers and that staple-led growth will reduce poverty more than export-led growth.

The three regions according to the report account for 17% of Ghana’s population and 28% of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s 2011 budget – this it observes is a higher proportion of MoFA’s spending but still not sufficient to address the depth of poverty in the North. The various constraints of women farmers – notably on access to land and security of tenure, capital, water harvesting, extension services, improved seeds, livestock breeders, processing equipment and food storage – the report stressed should be addressed. “Most farming households in Northern Ghana still experience food insecurity for 3 to 7 months in any year”, it disclosed. 

In view of the aforementioned, ActionAid which works with the poor, excluded people and communities in Ghana to end poverty and injustice assembled smallholder farmers, mostly women drawn from the three regions of the North in Tamale for a three-day workshop between May 15^th and 17^th, 2012.

The workshop was to sensitise the participants on the NGO’s research findings on public financing of agriculture research, networking and agricultural policy advocacy. The research was based on extensive secondary research, interviews with government officials, donors, academics and NGOs, and fieldwork in Northern and Upper East Regions.

At the end of the workshop, participants issued a communiqué carrying several loaded grievances to government by highlighting previous interventions that failed to work in their interest and proposed new steps that should be considered for immediate implementation in order to ensure poverty eradication and food security particularly among residents of the North and the country at large.

The communiqué which was signed by Queronica Q. Quartey, Right to Food and Climate Change Policy Advisor of ActionAid-Ghana and Andrews Bukari, a representative of the participants, indicated that the farmers appreciate the fact that African States, through the Heads of State Summit in Maputo in 2003 committed themselves to allocate 10% of their national annual budget to support agriculture and ensure annual growth rates in the agricultural sector by 6% and as endorsed in the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

It said it is also aware that government has put in place a food and agriculture sector policy phase two, FASDEP II (to target poor and risk prone producers) and its investment plan, the Medium Term Agricultural Sector Investment Plan (METASIP).

However, they (farmers) recognized that FASDEP I had constraints to its intended rural transformation and poverty reduction through modernization of poor smallholder agriculture because of improper targeting of the poor for development intervention and weak problem analysis. 

The communiqué further recognized that smallholder agriculture has been recognized in FASDEP II as playing significant roles in the food and agriculture sector and acknowledges women smallholder farmers as the main actors in production, processing and marketing, and that women are indeed the key actors in Ghanaian farming: constituting over half the agricultural labour force, producing 70% of the country’s food, constitute 95% of those involved in agro-processing and 85% of those in food distribution.

While noting that smallholder agriculture has not been given adequate attention in the METASIP and smallholder women farmers do not have a specific budget line, the farmers in the communiqué demanded that government increase its spending on agriculture, regarding the 10% allocation as a bare minimum for direct investment in food and agriculture.

Government, they noted, should relief the agriculture budget of the load of the feeder roads budget and distribute it on all sectors thereby making more resources available for direct funding for food and agriculture.

They stressed on the need for government to reorient the FASDEP II and METASIP to focus more on women farmers. “The extension service should be overhauled to support women farmers and agricultural research programmes should be reviewed to increase the productivity of crops grown by women and involve women in research”, the communiqué added.

The communiqué recommended that government subsidy programmes such as the fertilizer, tractors and block farming programmes should be allocated equally to men and women – 50:50. According to the research report, farmers said that the initial finance of between GH¢6,000 to GH¢12,000 required to access a tractor under the hire purchase scheme is unaffordable to most people and suggest that the deposit be reduced to between GH¢2,000 and GH¢5,000. Also, subsidizing simpler technologies is likely to be more beneficial for small farmers, the report suggested, adding that simple time and labour saving equipment like long-handled hoes or cassava processing mills, can reach many more farmers and communities whereas the application of a minimum fertilizer quota for women would ensure that subsidies are more available to them. 

It  also suggested that government develop a strategy to promote sustainable agriculture and reduce too much dependence on chemical  inputs, promoting low cost, high output and integrated farming systems –including models on agro-ecological approach, community seeds banks, use of indigenous knowledge, investment in small scale irrigation systems, livestock provision for women farmers and associated affordable credit.

It also called on the government to target resources more towards the three regions of the North especially to support increased productivity of staples through improved extension services, research, irrigation and credit facilities for smallholder farmers particularly women farmers.

The communiqué urged strongly on the need to lift the ban on employment in MoFA, especially the ban on recruitment of extension officers and to employ more female extension officers since in their estimation, they relate well with female farmers and vice versa. For instance, MoFA currently has only 3000 extension service officers across the country and most of them lack motorbikes to enable them reach communities, and salaries are low, making it very difficult to attract talented staff. The ratio of distribution of extension officers is 1:1500 farmers. 

This notwithstanding, Ghana has become an African success story when it comes to reducing hunger and poverty. It has already met Millennium Development Goal 1 of reducing the proportion of undernourished people from 27% in 1990 to 5% in 2007 – the lowest proportion of any sub-Saharan African state. Yet major challenges remain, especially for the country’s smallholder farmers, who achieve low productivity, are reliant on rain-fed farming and simple tools and have little access to extension services, finance and markets.