Dr Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Health, on Tuesday urged health partners to assist the ministry establish community health training schools in all the regions to provide the needed manpower for the development of the sector.

"This capital intensive strategy will in some way solve the issue of brain drain in the country," he said. The Minister, opening this year's four-day annual health partners summit in Accra, said the ministry needed to retain and find ways of deploying large numbers health professionals to the deprived areas.

Dr Afriyie noted that the current doctor to patient ratio was 1:22,000 whilst one nurse handled nearly 3,000 patients. "These numbers become more disturbing in the deprived regions where the ratio sometimes doubles."

He said the ministry would next year make definite advances on motivation to retain the few professionals left in the country and train more. The Minister said the incentive packages would include salary increment, provision of vehicles and housing loans, support for the child education and ensuring of a system of bonding that would involve the district assemblies to give them the opportunity to negotiate and agree on terms with health staff deployed to the deprived areas.

Dr Afriyie said the establishment of community-based Health Planning and Services Compounds were being pursued to increase access to primary health care in deprived areas.

He called on government to support the establishment of multiple schemes including Mutual Health organisations, social and private health insurance schemes. The Minister noted that proposals for effective targeting and implementation of the exemptions for the disadvantaged in society have been forwarded to cabinet for approval. This is to provide relief and increase access to health care to the poor.

He said the ministry has identified the Central, Northern, Upper East and Upper West as deprived regions by health standards and should therefore be given special concessions under the Ghana Poverty reduction Strategy HIPIC funds.

Jan van der Horst, a Representative of the Partners, commended the ministry for the progress made over the years and urged the ministry to urgently work on human resource development where "affirmative action could no longer wait".

He said the institutional and organisational changes at the ministry required special care, which, if not done, would have negative consequences beyond the sector. The partners called for addressing of issues of responsibilities, reinforcement of communication lines and creation of enabling environment for development partners.

Samuel Owusu-Agyei, Acting Chief Director of the ministry, said partners would discuss issues relating to the poverty reduction strategy, common management arrangements, human resource strategy, 2003 programme of work and financial resources for the health sector.

Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Integration, who presided, urged health partners to have room for monitoring and evaluation of their programmes. This, he said, would enable them to assess themselves and plan better in the subsequent years.