A number of projects to improve the health sector have been earmarked to start before the end of the year. They include a $20-million General Hospital and Malaria Research Centre at Teshie in the Greater Accra Region and a $7.5 million Cancer Hospital at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH). A new urology department valued at $8 million will also be built at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, while the Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine unit at the same hospital will be extended at a cost of $7.5 million. The Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, who announced this at Kintampo in the Brong Ahafo Region at the weekend, said work would soon start on the second phase of the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital, which will cost $11 million. In a speech read on his behalf by the regional minister, Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, at the third congregation of the Kintampo Rural Health Training School (KRHTS), the Vice-President said a major rehabilitation and upgrading of the Tamale Teaching Hospital would also commence. The theme for the ceremony was "Pursuing Excellence in Medical Education and Training for Optimum Health: The Role of KRHTS". In all, 754 trainees, including 23 medical laboratory or biomedical scientists and 25 medical assistants graduated. The Vice-President said the government had put in place pragmatic policies to improve the situation of health managers in the country. These polices, he said, included the extension of the health training institutions to allow for increased intake of trainees and the review of the remuneration package and service conditions of health workers to make it attractive for them to work in Ghana. Alhaji Mahama said intake into health training institutions had increased dramatically as a result of the expansion programme. He explained that from a total of 968 in the -1999/2000 academic year, intake into those institutions had gone up to 7,066 for the 2006/2007 academic year, and that general nursing alone had risen from 648 in 1999/2000 to 2,434 for the same period. Alhaji Mahama said the number of Community Health Nursing trainees, had increased from 102 in 1999/2000 to 1,841 in 2006/2007, while that of trainee midwives went up from 48 to 614 over the same period, adding that new programmes such as the Health Assistant training, had been introduced and currently had an intake of 964. He said Ghana was firmly on the road to producing the required numbers of health personnel for the health institutions, stressing that apart from the increases, there had also been some modest improvements in the health status of Ghanaians. Alhaji Mahama further pointed out that since 2001, 205 new hospitals and clinics, including three key district hospital projects in the Eastern, Volta and Northern regions, had been constructed in the country, while 48 clinics had been upgraded to hospital status, with 33 hospitals and clinics having undergone complete rehabilitation. Currently, he said, 77 projects, including the new $75 million National Trauma Centre at the KATH were ongoing with 18 earmarked for completion by the end of this year. The Vice-President commended the KRHTS for the role it had played in the overall achievements in the health sector, resulting in the government's decision to undertake some investments in the institution, aimed at improving training and supporting the school to pursue excellence in medical education and training. He stated that as part of the HIPC benefits, a block of lecture halls had been completed, while security posts, pavements and walkways had been constructed. Landscaping of the main school campus had been completed, while a dental facility for service provision and training of Community Oral Health Professionals had also been completed and was in use through a joint effort between the government and the Netherlands government. Alhaji Mahama further said the government had provided a 62-seater modern bus to facilitate students clinical field practice and that a three-storey hostel accommodation complex was under construction with a government of Ghana-HIPC support, while the Kintampo Municipal Assembly was also putting up a single-storey hostel accommodation which was about 90 per cent completed. Touching on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Vice-President noted that its introduction had led to a three-fold increase in hospital attendance in some areas, saying that outpatients department (OPD) attendance had moved from a yearly average of 0.38 per capita in 2001 to 0.7 at the end of 2007. Alhaji Mahama pointed out that in some areas, including the Brong Ahafo Region, OPD attendance had reached the 1.02 per capita mark, which meant that more and more people who needed to use health services now had the opportunity and means to do so under the NHIS. The Vice-President again indicated that the government was pursuing a "close-to-client" service policy through the expansion of the Community-Based Health Service programme, under which qualified health workers were placed within identified communities to be responsible for ensuring that basic healthcare was made available to those communities. The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr (Mrs) Gladys Ashitey, said the Ministry of Health (MoH) had the objective to promote and sustain quality health for Ghanaians within the broader framework of creating wealth through health, saying that could only be achieved, if the MoH was endowed with competent professionals. Dr E.T. Adjase, the Director of KRHTS, announced that efforts were being made to transform the school into a university college but noted that "this cannot happen without the extra support from the central government, development partners, corporate bodies, alumni, traditional authorities and other concerned individuals and groups". According to Dr Adjase, financing options from the private sector for quality training of health professionals had to be looked at critically at this point of dwindling central government support. The occasion was also used to honour and award personalities, including Health Minister, Major Courage Quashigah, Dr Moses E.K. Adibo, a former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, and Alhaji Asuma Banda, a business executive, for their outstanding contributions to the development of the KRHTS. Source: Daily Graphic