The Chief Executive Officer CEO of Ghana Medical and Dental Council Mr. Divine N. Banyubala, has stated in categorically that the locally trained medical and dental practitioners are far better compared to their counterparts trained outside Ghana.
According to him, Medical and Dental Council’s Registration Examinations for foreign trained practitioners wishing to permanently practice here have shown clearly that most of them lack basic knowledge and competencies to practice safely in Ghana.
Speaking at the council’s 50th anniversary under the theme “Medical Training and practice in Ghana; The Past, Present and future, Mr Divine N. Banyubala assured Ghanaians of quality Medical practitioners across the country.
Mr Banyubala, the Registrar of Ghana Medical and Dental Council indicated that his outfit has put proper mechanism in place to ensure quality Medical and Dental practitioners across the various hospitals in Ghana.
This to him, the Council has signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ghana Physicians and Surgeons Foundation of North America to leverage the collective expertise and experiences of Ghanaian doctors and dentists in the diaspora to enhance training, specialist and sub-specialist service delivery and health related research.
Further, he called on Ghanaians to help the medical and dental Council to flash out the fake health practitioners out of the system that will help the council to do their work and to avoid mistakes.
The Medical and Dental Council, Ghana was formally set up under the Medical and Dental Act, 1972 (National Redemption Council Decree 91) and charged with the responsibility for the regulation of the medical and dental professions in Ghana.
It is important to note that the local training of medical doctors commenced in 1962, a whole decade before the Council was established to regulate the training and practice of medicine and dentistry in Ghana.
The Council now has over 10,400 doctors with active licenses on its registers and 6,000 physician assistants (medical, anaesthesia and oral health). Council launched the Specialist Register last year.
There is no doubt that the Council has over the decades witnessed good progress in all the critical regulatory areas (standard setting, training, registration, regulation and policy support for the health sector generally) owing to the great work done by successive Boards and Managements of the Council.
Data from this Register tells a very concerning story. There are 244 Fellows registered as at June 30, 2022 and 64% of that number is in the Greater Accra Region alone. Another 19% is in Ashanti Region. This means that Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions make up 83% of all registered Senior Specialists.
Worryingly, half of the 16 Regions, in particular, Ahafo, Oti, North Eastern, Upper East, Western, Upper West, Western North, and Savannah regions have not a single Senior Specialist registered.
The Chief Executive Officer CEO of Ghana Medical and Dental Council Mr. Divine N Banyubala address at the Council’s 50th anniversary, he made known that the healthcare context in Ghana, constitutes an additional regulatory complexity that needs to be matched by a well-resourced, innovative, pragmatic and proactive professional regulator.
Report By Bernard K DADZIE