The Management of the School of Anaesthesia at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Kumasi, has called for an urgent intervention of the Ministry of Health (MoH) to help resolve its accreditation issue with the National Accreditation Board (NAB).
According to Dr Wilfred Sam-Awortwi Jr. Director, the school which was established in 1988 to train Nurse Anaesthetists, is the only anaesthetic school in the northern sector, but was saddled with accreditation challenges.
He has therefore called for the urgent intervention of the Ministry, to help expedite the processes in granting accreditation to the facility to enable it run its academic programme.
“We are in a fix and do not know what to do now. The School still has issues with its accreditation from the National Accreditation Board (NAB).
“Consequently, the management is finding it difficult to even admit fresh students,” Dr. Sam-Awortwi, told Mr. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, the Minister of Health, who visited the school as part of a four-day working visit to the Ashanti Region.
He said the school had over the years trained over one thousand nurse anaesthetists, who were currently providing services for pre-operative, intra-operative and post-operative surgical patients, at health facilities across the country.
Dr. Sam-Awortwi said what had compounded the predicament was the limited number of permanent tutors explaining that, almost all the tutors of the facility were now working on part-time basis.
“This is a big drain on our internally-generated funds (IGF),” he noted, saying they also needed adequate infrastructure in terms of classrooms and accommodation for their students and staff in order to operate effectively.
The Director pointed out that earlier the MoH intervened in addressing their predicament in view of the critical role anaesthetists played in healthcare delivery.
Mr Agyemang-Manu is in the Region to keep track of health development projects and programmes, and related challenges.
He would in the course of his work also interact with health directors and staff to brief them on government policies intended to improve their working conditions.
The Minister had already inspected facilities at the KATH, Ghana’s second largest health referral facility, assuring the management of the Ministry’s resolve to mobilize the needed resources for effective healthcare delivery.
He was accompanied by the Regional Health Director, Dr Emmanuel Tenkorang, and the KATH Chief Executive Officer, Dr Oheneba Danso.