Leadership of Christian health institutions urged to educate staff

Mr. Philibert Kankye, Executive Director of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), has appealed to the leadership of Christian health institutions to orient their staff on the standard guidelines of Ministry of Health (MOH) to ensure that they provided quality health care.

He said the government through the MOH was offering human resource training for staff of mission health facilities and there was the need for the leadership to complement the efforts of government by ensuring that their staff provided efficient service to the public.

Mr. Kankye said this in Kumasi during the Ghana Adventists Health Service (GHAS) institutions Annual General Meeting (AGM).

He said he was pleased that Christian health institutions had increased from 25 to 160 within the last 40 years and congratulated the members for also providing the health needs of the poor and vulnerable.

He said out of 160 health institutions, 60 are hospitals, 92 are primary health care facilities and nine are health manpower training centres including the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) Church Nursing Training College, the latest.

Mr. Kankye advised CHAG to be submissive to the rules and regulations of MOH as well as respect other service providers.

Pastor K. Annor Boafo, Ghana Union Conference (GUC) of the SDA Health Ministries Director, said the SDA church operates eleven hospitals, 10 clinics, two training schools and a central pharmacy.

He said the church's education on diet, exercise, smoking, drinking, vegetarianism and HIV/AIDS had intensified and that sat least 8,000 HIV/AIDS counsellors were trained in Ghana.

Pastor Boafo said since GAHS existed to promote, restore and maintain physical, mental, social and spiritual health of individuals, it would promote and advocate developmental needs for a holistic and functional health system.