MOH TO EMPLOY MORE HEALTH PROFESSIONALS (PAGE 69)

THE Director of Human Resource at the Ministry of Health, Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira, has said the ministry will employ about 5,400 health professionals this year to augment the existing number of staff. He, however, cautioned health professionals not to refuse postings to the rural areas because there was a high concentration of staff in the urban areas, to the detriment of the rural areas.
Dr Appiah-Denkyira made the remarks during the first graduation and second matriculation of the Adom School for Medical Laboratory Technicians at Tema.
He gave the assurance that the Ministry of Health would not discriminate against products of private schools as far as recruitment was concerned.
Dr Appiah-Denkyira called on the grandaunds to consider forming an association of private health institutions to enable the ministry deal with their concerns.
He congratulated the 11 graduates for excelling in their final examinations and urged them to aim higher to achieve greater laurels and also encouraged the new entrants to learn hard.
Dr Appiah-Denkyira said the establishment of the school in October 2005 fulfilled one of the dreams of the Ministry of Health in partnering the private sector to develop the human resource requirements of the health sector.
He said since the ministry was not the only employment agency, the private entrepreneurs must be encouraged to open up more health facilities such as diagnostic and research institutions so that their products could have a wider employment opportunities.
The Principal of the Adom School for Medical Laboratory Technicians, Dr S. Q. Maddy, said the school was granted accreditation by the Ministry of Health in 2006, after it had admitted its first batch of students in 2005. This batch comprised seven males and four females.
He announced that after two years intensive training, all the 11 pioneering students which the Allied Health Sciences presented to be examined were successful; three obtained distinctions, six had credits and two, ordinary passes.
Dr Maddy said two of the students excelled in the major disciplines such as haematology, clinical chemistry and microbiology, while one emerged as the overall best student.
He said the graduates had also undergone six months internship training at various hospitals to gain practical experience.
Touching on the matriculation, Dr Maddy said the school had offered admission to 165 students, made up of 112 males and 53 females, representing the third and fourth batches of the student intake for the October 2007 and 2008 admissions respectively.
He gave the promise that the school would play a facilitating role in the area of job placement to ensure that graduates from the school were adequately placed.
The Overall Best Student Award for 2005-2007 went to Ms Rebecca Mawuse Sosu, who received most of the awards, including the Clinical Chemistry Award.