General News of Friday, 26 September 1997

Source: --

Central Medical Stores To Be Made Autonomous To Ensure Efficiency

Accra, 24 Sept., The Ministry of Health is to turn the Central Medical Stores into a semi-autonomous and self accounting institution under the Ghana Health Services. Dr Eunice Brookman-Amissah, Minister of Health, said this at the 44th biennial conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana which is on the theme ''The Pharmacist in Health Education and Health Promotion''. In a speech read on her behalf by Nana Paddy Akyeampong, deputy minister of health, the minister said the orientation is not an attempt to shirk government's responsibility to ensure availability of essential drugs in the public health institutions. ''The sole motive is to improve efficiency and thereby make the best out of our limited resources'', she said, and asked prescribers and pharmacists to comply with the provisions of the Essential Drugs Policy, to achieve the ministry's aims and objectives. The four-day meeting being attended by 600 professionals from all over the country will devise strategies to improve upon standards.