Kumasi, Feb 9, GNA- Dr. Kyei Faried, Ashanti Regional Senior Medical Officer of Public Health, said on Monday that the era in which the doctor says and the patient takes was quickly eroding.
We have entered into a new era where the doctor and the patient negotiate for the most feasible and the most appropriate treatment options to be chosen for the patient’s circumstance.
Speaking at the Ashanti Regional celebration of the first anniversary of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), during an open and exhibition day in Kumasi, Dr Faried said the new GHS staff therefore, were expected to be professionally up-to-date and competent.
Let me state that skill and knowledge have been seen by all health workers as asset to the Service to be used to the benefit of the public and not to be viewed through selfish lenses as threat to be suppressed. The theme for the celebration was: “Eat Well, Stay Healthy, Live Longer”.
Dr Kyei Faried said the coming into being of the GHS had brought some changes into the Service and mentioned the provision of vehicles to all regions, districts and hospitals and Regional Directors of Health.
The creating of the Service, he said, brought in its wake the decentralisation of promotions, which hitherto was done from Accra. He said last year the regions were asked to initiate processes to establish community health schools to help provide the needed health workers at the community level.
In Ashanti, Dr Kyei Faried said the school was sited at Fomena where, through a close working relationship between the Adansi Traditional Council and the regional health directorate academic work will start this year.
He said there was also marked improvement in the use of their services and that Out-Patient Department (OPD) attendance per capita rose from 0.42 per cent to 0.47 per cent, while measles immunisation coverage was 98 per cent and antenatal clinic attendance was 100 per cent.
Dr Kyei Faried reminded personnel of the GHS that they were going to face key challenges during the second year of the Service and said, key among them was the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
“Given the current disparities in access to health services, we should position ourselves in a way that will enable everybody resident in the country receive all the services that will be defined in the district-wide Ministry of Health basic package.”
He said the challenges posed by communicable diseases were still around despite some significant successes chalked in the areas of polio eradication, leprosy control and measles elimination.
Dr Kyei Faried said case finding rate for tuberculosis (TB) was very low in Ashanti and that of the expected 8,000 occurring in the region, only 22 per cent reported for treatment in 2003 and that even among these, 17 per cent default in their treatment.
The region, he said, still records about 3,000 new AIDS cases every year including 2003, while 320 cases of Buruli Ulcer cases were recorded in the region in 2003 and malaria still accounted for 40 per cent of OPD attendance.
Dr (Mrs) Agatha Akua Bonney, the Kumasi Metropolitan Director of Health Services, said the aim of the Open and Exhibition Day was to let clients or patients know that the GHS cares for them and to showcase what pertained in the health institutions.
She reiterated that some years past, some health personnel did not explain procedures to patients, but “we would like to assure the public that GHS is moving from that stance”.
The patient has the right to know and we, health personnel, are ready to offer these services, Dr Bonney added.
