Dr Robinson visits Obom Health Centre

Obom (GR), March 8 GNA - Dr Mary Robinson, the Chairperson of the Council of Women World Leaders and a Member of the UN Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, on Thursday said rich nations had a responsibility to help poor countries to solve their brain drain issues since they were the direct beneficiaries of the system.

She said various international organizations were working on a new development system termed "Co-development" whereby rich nations would be required to assist poor ones in raising the salary of their health workers in order to retain them in their home countries was very important.

Dr Robinson, who was the former President of the Republic of Ireland and former United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the remark when she paid a working visit to the Obom Health Centre in the Ga West District of the Greater Accra Region.

She is on a five-day visit to the country to deliver the Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lecture at the University of Ghana, Legon. Dr Gladys Norley Ashitey, Deputy Minister of Health accompanied her on the tour.

The tour was to afford her the opportunity to learn at first hand conditions of the health delivery system and personnel particularly those in the rural areas.

Dr Robinson is expected to use her findings to impress on rich nations to support poor countries that have been affected by the problem of "brain drain", especially in their health sector.

She expressed her delight at what she saw at Obom and to have learnt that health personnel in the other parts of country were equally managing the system in solving the numerous health problems despite the little resources at their disposal.