GHS renews MOU with Yale University

Accra, Mar. 12, - The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has renewed its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Yale University, an American private Ivy League research institution, to indicate the country’s commitment to continue with the collaboration.

Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, at the signing ceremony in Accra on Monday, expressed his gratitude to Mr Peter Salovey, President of the Yale University, for their contributions to research works, which had improved country’s health systems and enhanced the lives of the citizenry.

He said the Yale University had over the years been assisting Ghana in the formulation of policies on the Mental Health Law (MHL), and had also been very instrumental in the operations of the legislation since it was passed.

He said the “essence of extending the collaboration to five years was to pick ideas, and compare evidence based medicines from Yale University and exchange faculties and health professionals to move the world to a better place”.

“Ghanaian health professionals would go far to learn in Yale and likewise health workers in Yale also learn from Ghana”, therefore, evidence-based facts and best practices in medicine would be discharged for Ghanaians to achieve a quality Universal Health Coverage, he said.

Dr Nsiah-Asare said the renewal of the MOU, would therefore lead to a stronger collaboration for the benefit of both institutions as they would be able to share materials and scientific ideas to give aid to their people respectively.

He noted that, despite the amendment, the former MOU would still be maintained, adding that, the GHS was concerned about Maternal and Child Health, which include Maternal Mortality and under five mortality, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal Three (SDG 3), the Service would work together with the Yale University to learn how to achieve this goal.

He said Ghana needed trained health researchers to use whatever research they had conducted to impact on the work that the GHS was steering, saying, “Medicine is all about evidence-based, so evidence-based practices is what we want as a country”.

Mr Peter Salovey, said the President of Yale University, expressed his gratitude to the GHS and the government of Ghana for renewing its partnership, saying, the University intended to build stronger affiliations with institutions, faculties and students in Africa, to enhance their capacities in health research.

GNA