Ghana spent GH?420M on waste management in the year 2012 according to a study carried out by the Water and Sanitation Programme.

Consequently, the Central Regional Minister Aquinas Tawiah Quansah has directed all metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCE’s) in the Region to secure lands for the construction of a properly engineered land field sites for waste disposal.

According to the Minister, issues of waste disposal had been a big challenge to the management of waste in the country and therefore believed that a properly engineered land field could be a lasting solution to the canker.

Mr. Quansah made this known when he addressed the official opening of the 10th Annual General Meeting of the conference of Heads of Health Training Institutions (COHHETI) on the theme “Sanitation for all: The Role of Health Training Institutions”, in Cape Coast on Tuesday.

The five day conference, will among others, create the platform for general discussions on matters affecting the administration and organization of HTIs, update members on new policies and information as well as bargain for appropriate conditions of service for members.

Making reference to the Weija land field site, the Minister said if it was properly engineered, the site would not have been full by now adding that “we cannot continue to be moving from sites to sites with piles of refuse”

The Government would not continue to spend huge amount of money on poor sanitation and its related diseases, he indicated and stressed that sanitation was an integral part of the Government’s public health development agenda and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7.

He said bad attitude of citizens towards waste disposal including open defecating into gutters and shores of the sea were major contributing factor to the country’s failure in achieving the MDG target on sanitation.

Mr. Quansah urged the Heads of Health Institutions to collaborate with the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA’s) and come out with strategies to deal with peculiar sanitation challenges in their respective areas.

Touching on the theme, the President of COHHETI Mrs. Sophia Agyei- Aye, expressed worry over the current sanitation situation in the country and the threat it posed to citizens and therefore appealed to members of the conference to institute their own sanitation days and also initiate public health education programmes in their communities.

She appealed to Government to relieve Health Training Institutions (HTIs) of what she described as “enormous budgetary constraints” which was putting a strain on the meagre resources of their institutions.

She called on the Ministry of Health (MoH) to find a lasting solution to the situation in which students were made to pay extra fees and provide boxes of gloves at clinical sites although the students have already paid practical/fieldwork.

The Minister of Health, Mr Alex Segbefia in a speech read on his behalf acknowledged the efforts of the managers of health training institutions and their selfless commitment towards the training of quality health personnel in the midst of enormous constraints.

He described the theme for the conference as appropriate since the contributions of health training institutions to good sanitation was key in the area of knowledge, attitudes and skills and called for a paradigm shift in attitudes and quality health service delivery.

He assured the principals that Government was willing and would do anything within its capacity to support the institutions with the requisite materials and infrastructure for effective teaching and learning.