We Need Our Certificates, Past Students Of College Of Health, Kintampo Cry Out.

What have we done wrong to be deprived of our certificates after the successful completion of a bachelor of science in community medicine and Health since 2016 and 2017?. Did we wrong any politician or authority as health practitioners who wanted to upgrade ourselves to acquire additional knowledge and skills in the performance of our work?.

These are the lamentations and questions asked by the over 600 practicing Physician Assistants across the country, crying out for the release of their hard-earned certificates.

College of Health (COH) in the year 2016, 2017, organized a sandwich program of bachelor of science in community medicine/and health. This was in adherence to the directive from the ministry of health (MOH) to all health training institutions running post-diploma programs to stop issuing Advanced Diploma Certificate. Sequel to that directive top-up programs were organized by all these health training institutions to award degrees to prospective graduates.

The aftermath of the directive was that all these health training institutions affiliated themselves to the universities in order to be able to award degrees after satisfying the requirement of additional human resources, infrastructure, and training guidelines. Most of these schools were affiliated to the University of Cape Coast among which were College of Health, KATH School of Anaesthesia, 37 Military School of Anaesthesia, etc.

Students who applied and were enrolled at the College of Health, Kintampo were informed by the authorities of the school that, the school had attained both institutional and program accreditation only to be told otherwise after successful completion of the program.

This has caused us to be frustrated, devastated, disappointed and demoralized to mention a few by the inactions of the authorities of the College of Health, Kintampo, University of Cape Coast and the Ministry of Health see to the running of the school. The school authorities have blatantly refused to respond to letters of inquiries and petitions sent them since 2017. And there is no form of communication coming from them to the aggrieved graduates.

It is the prerogative of the Ministry of Health to see to the amicable solution of this issue and they cannot deny their involvement because the college is under their jurisdiction and the school respond to them in all matters. The endorsement is given to the program by the Ghana Health Service for interested practitioners to apply and pursue the program confirmed the genuineness of the advertised program.

Our simple demand is to be issued our bachelor of science in community medicine and health certificates because the affected students did not commit any error during the program. We fulfilled the expectations as students and completed the program successfully, the onus is on the school authorities(UCC and COH) to fulfill their part with upward supervision by the MOH. We are tired of waiting and being deprived of carrier advancement.

Thank you.