Accra, Jan. 15, - The Ghana
Health Service (GHS), in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES),
has begun a nationwide medical screening for students in the Senior High
Schools (SHSs).
First year students enrolled
under the Free SHS policy have started undergoing medical examinations and
their medical records would be kept and allocated to the various health
facilities near them.
Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Director-General
of the GES, made this known to the media on Monday, during a routine inspection
of some health facilities in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and Dade-Kotopon
Municipality of the Greater Accra Region.
He said all the second cycle
educational institutions are supposed to have functional sick bays to take care
of the health needs of students.
“Every secondary school boarding
house should have a functional sick bay, which would be a connection between us
and the school.
“We will use the sick bay as a
point of call whenever any student is sick and even allow the health facility
looking after the school to deploy a nurse there,” he said.
Dr Nsiah-Asare said the GES would
take full control of school health and would not wait till an epidemic breaks out
or students fall sick before providing health services.
He said the GES would take
students through physical education, healthy lifestyles and nutrition, as well
as health education and general environmental sanitation issues at the schools.
The Director-General of the GES
said government was re-structuring of the National Health Insurance Scheme
(NHIS), in order to improve health service delivery.
He said government has settled
some of the arrears of the NHIS and expressed optimism that, it would complete
paying the outstanding arrears by the end of the year.
“Health is our main business and
so the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) ultimate aim is to run health facilities and
ensure that the public receive quality healthcare,” he said.
He said the MOH and its agencies
like the GES and the teaching hospitals were undertaking a lot of innovations
and initiating changes that would enhance administrative efficiency and ensure
quality healthcare and customer service delivery.
Dr Ebenezer Oduro-Mensah, the
Medical Superintendent of the La General Hospital, said in 2017, the facility
received a lot of support from the government in terms of deployment of health
personnel, which improved the general service delivery.
He said the facility has started
putting measures in place to renovate some of its structures, adding that, it
had secured some space to install new beds to accommodate more patients.
Dr Oduro-Mensah said: “We’re
hoping that government alongside other companies and philanthropists would
donate needed equipment to improve the care of patients”.
He said the hospital, which
started as a polyclinic, needed expansion since it was the only health facility
in the municipality.
On challenges, he said, the
facility was still grappling with unacceptable staff attitudes, funding and
NHIS outstanding debts.
However, he said, it was
determined to consolidate the gains made last year in order to make healthcare
better.
Touching on plans to roll out
innovative policies to increase its internally-generated funds, he said, the
facility was considering putting up a ward that would cater for patients who
may request for “VIP Treatment”, instead of general services.
He said it would also consider
entering into public-private partnerships with some major laboratories so that,
services which the hospital could not provide would be given to them and vice
versa.
“We can also offer health
screening to other corporate organisations at a cost, but whatever we do, we
don’t want to burden our clients and avoid charging them illegally for services
we render to them,” he said.
GNA
Caption: Pictures Attached
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