Allied Health Professions Council has inducted and sworn in 1,348 health graduates in Kumasi to undertake their one-year internship programmes in the various health centres across the country.
The graduates completed various diploma professional programmes which included Community Mental Health, Medical Laboratory, Physiotherapy, Health Information, Dental Surgery and Disease Control, Dietetics, Prosthetics and Orthotics, Environmental Health, Health Promotion, Occupational Therapy, Nutrition and Dental.
Addressing the graduates on the theme, “Achieving Ghana’s Universal Health Coverage: the role of the Allied Health Professional,” the guest speaker, Professor Francis Yeboah, Vice Dean, School of Medical Science of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), noted that the allied health professionals played integral part of a nation’s quality health service delivery which should not be overlooked.
He said financing healthcare should be seen as an investment which could profit the country tremendously and so health coverage should be increased and extended to reach a large number of the population.
Prof. Yeboah insisted that the quality of health service in the country should be one of the best since the country could boast of allied health professionals who could provide essential health services at the various health centres in the cities and rural communities.
He stressed that, there were lots of opportunities to strengthen the primary health care system that would help drive progress toward the achievement of universal health coverage.
The Registrar of Allied Health, Dr Samuel Yaw Opoku, urged the graduates to take advantage of the one-year opportunity given them to work in the various health centres in the country and prepare themselves for their professional examination afterwards.
He called for more recognition for allied health professionals to enable them to make a real difference to the lives of their clients and by so doing, improving health care delivery in the country.
Dr Opoku appealed for the provision of adequate resources to ensure strong, efficient administrative and operational structures to enable them efficiently perform their functions.
FROM FAUSTINA KWABEA OSEI, KUMASI
