Accra, Feb. 6, - The Ghana Health
Service (GHS) Council, on Tuesday inaugurated a five-member Committee of
Experts to promote medical tourism to enhance healthcare delivery in the
country.
Medical tourism primarily
involves the travelling of people to other countries for the purpose of
obtaining quality medical care.
It has been envisaged that the
promotion of medical tourism in Ghana would ensure high savings to individual
patients and the government; promote access to high quality treatment with
modern state-of-the-art healthcare technology; eliminate waiting lists and
related inconveniences.
Medical tourism was also expected
to create employment opportunities for travelling agents, boost local tourism,
and enhance revenue generation to health facilities that would be registered to
provide needed medical treatment.
The Committee made up of Dr
Akoreyea Kaba, the Director, Institutional Care Division, GHS; Col. (Dr) Gordon
A. Obiri Appiah, a Nero-Surgeon at the 37 Military Hospital and Member of the
GHS Council; Mr Ben A. Nkansah and Madam Romana Sarpong Omaboe, both
representatives of the GHS Council, and Dr Emmanuel Srofenyo, the Medical Director
of the Greater Accra Regional Hospital at Ridge, was given three months to
submit its report to the GHS Council.
Dr Yao Yeboah, the Chairman of
the Ghana Health Service Council inaugurating the committee, said the Committee
was expected to among other things, compile major medical procedures that could
be managed locally and their comparative costs.
These, he said, include kidney
transplant, knee, hip and valve replacement with by-pass, retinal detachment,
Invitro Fertilization (IVF cycle), orthopedics, maxillo-facial surgery, cardiac
and cosmetic surgeries.
He said they would also be
expected to undertake needs assessment of health facilities in the public,
private and quasi-government sectors that could provide medical tourism,
identify the shortfalls and estimated budgets in addressing such challenges in
the short, medium and long term.
The Committee members would also
compile a register of local specialists and consultants as well as Ghanaians in
the Diaspora with the required professional qualification and experiences, who
would be eager to support the project, and further prepare and submit a final
Legislative Instrument as well as regulations for ratification.
Dr Yeboah said the Committee was
required to work within the next three months, but the duration might be
subjected to review, should the need arises.
Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the
Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, said it was envisaged that upon
the completion of the exercise, there would be a comprehensive operational
policy capable for operationalising the medical tourism in the country.
Giving a brief background, he
said it has been observed that the health sector over the past years had been
compelled to medically evacuate patients from the public, quasi-government and
private sectors, who for want for local requisite medical facilities,
technology and qualified professionals, travelled abroad for further management
of their health conditions.
The Director-General said the
relatively expensive costs of such treatments, not to mention the
inconveniences such patients and their accompanying dependents had to go
through, could not be over emphasised.
He said it was noteworthy
however, that Ghana in recent years had commissioned new and rehabilitated
health facilities such as the Greater Accra Regional Hospital at Ridge, with
state-of-the-art technology, that could be used to kick-start the medical
tourism project and later extend it to other selected facilities across the
country.
Dr Nsiah-Asare said it was in
respect of the aforementioned backdrops that the GHS Council, in its quest to
strengthen healthcare delivery in Ghana, had empanelled the expert committee to
promote medical tourism.
He said the GHS Council was
convinced that the establishment of medical tourism would attract patients from
the West African Sub-region in particular, to receive the needed treatment in
accredited health facilities.
He urged the Committee to work
hard to secure international accreditation for the various health institutions
that would be selected for the project.
GNA
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