Accra (Greater Accra) 23 July '99

With effect from October this year, medical professionals trained outside Ghana will be vetted before they are allowed to practice in the country.

The Ghana Medical and Dental Council has instituted a system called "Pre-Registration Examination" to assess all foreign trained medical and dental professionals before registration without which they will not be recognised.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on Thursday, Dr Christain Botchway, Chairman of the Council, said this procedure is in accordance with the Medical and Dental Decree of 1972 (Section 21 of NRCD 91)

The law provides that: "Council may, if it thinks fit in any particular case, require the person to pass such examination as Council may prescribe prior to registration of that person under this Decree".

Dr Botchway said though this procedure is practised world-wide and locally by other health professionals, the first attempt by the Council in 1987 was shelved due to fears from certain quarters that it was a discrimination against specific practitioners including those already practising in the country.

Dr Botchway explained that carrying out this exercise is not meant to victimise any particular group of doctors or dentists. Rather, the prime concern is for the protection of patients by insisting on high standards of health care delivery in the country.

He said the action has become necessary because the Council has for sometime now been concerned about the wide variation in standards of practitioners trained outside who work in government facilities or are in private practice.

Though these deficiencies have been corrected in most cases, some of them have been serious and fundamental, he said and called for appropriate corrective measures.

Dr Botchway explained that the examination, which will be at par with that of the Medical Schools in Ghana, will be in four parts and that candidates will be given a pre-orientation course to prepare them. "No doctor will be registered to practice without passing the examination.

Doctors on short-term emergency and humanitarian visits to the country shall be exempted from the examination

Revision courses will be organised for two weeks for foreign-trained doctors, comprising ward rounds and at least four hours of tutorials in Child Health, Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrician Gynaecology.

The pass mark is 50 per cent and examinees must pass in all parts of the assessment - theory and orals.

The Council has recommended that candidates should have four attempts. If a candidate fails after the third attempt, his performance shall be studied and he will be referred to either of the Medical Schools for counselling and retraining for the final attempt.

The examination shall be held twice a year - February and August.

Dr Emmanuel Mensah, Director of Institutional Care at the Ministry of Health, who presided said the re-introduction of the procedure is in line with the law which has been set aside for a long time.