An 11-member governing board for the allied health council was on Friday inaugurated in Accra to oversee the regulation of education, training and practice of the allied health profession.

The board, which comprised experienced health workers, was expected to within the next 18 months determine the scope of practice for the allied health profession and provide an effective regulation system for allied workers, whose work had direct impact on the public.

Chaired by Professor Augustine Kwame Kyere, other members of the board are; Dr Samuel Yaw Opoku and Dr Gaetan Charles Adangabey.

The rest are; Dr Prince Sadoke Amuzu, Dr Samuel Kyei, Dr Matilda Asante and Mr Ofori-Amoah Justice. Dr Ernest Asiedu, Mrs Anna Pearl Akiwumi Siriboe, Mr Richard Asamoa-Mensah and Ms Justina Owusu Banahene.

Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, the Minister for Health, who inaugurated the board charged them to identify and analyse challenges confronting the allied health profession and submit proposals that would address them for consideration.

He encouraged the board to work hard to erase the negative perception about the allied health profession.

Professor Augustine Kwame Kyere, chairman of the board, thanked the minister for heeding to their plea to put the board in place.

He pledged that the newly constituted board would do its best to justify their nominations and correct all anomalies in the allied health profession, which constituted about 60 per cent of the nation’s health workforce.

Dr Ignatius Awinibuno, President of the Ghana Federation of Allied Health Profession, charged the board to hurriedly make up for all the 29 months the allied health training institutes and professionals operated without a board.

“The board is expected to address issues such as corporate governance infractions and find out how expenditures were approved previously, when they had no board,” he said.

He said the allied health professionals were looking up to the board to resolve the issue of quackery, which was permeating everywhere to stop unqualified persons from entering the health facilities and protect the society.

He also asked the board to control and halt the springing up of mushroom and substandard allied health training schools to restore public confidence in the profession.