Dr Kwaku Afriyie, Health Minister, on Monday said there was the need to improve the quality and volume of tertiary health care support to meet the goals of the sector.

He noted that Ghana, like other developing countries was saddled with major concerns in public health and had, therefore, not always been able to meet the needs of tertiary services such as surgery and surgical research in the implementation of health sector programmes.

Dr Afriyie opening a five-day Pan-African course in reconstructive surgery of the head and neck in Accra for plastic surgeons, maxillo-facial surgeons and other scientists.

Organised by the College of Health Sciences, the Health Ministry and the International Reconstructive Plastic Surgery Project, the meeting would afford participants the chance to upgrade their knowledge in surgical skills and exchange ideas in order to expand quality tertiary health care services in the country.

Dr Afriyie said as part of measures to expand these services, the ministry was rehabilitating the physical infrastructure of the teaching and regional hospitals and instituting formal and in-service training schemes for both clinical and management staff.

Dr Afriyie said it took between seven to 10 years to train a surgeon in Ghana and upon qualifying they leave the country to pursue other relevant programmes. He explained that on the average, therefore, surgeons took about 12 years for the system to benefit from their skills, a situation, which he said, did not meet the needs of developing countries such as Ghana.

"Our target in the medium term is to equip our doctors with practical surgical skills at the district and regional levels to be able to handle the numerous cases that would otherwise force people to seek other alternatives usually with fatal results.

"We need to put in place training schemes that turn middle-level personnel with relevant surgical skills without having to wait for more than two years", he noted. Dr Afriyie called on health training institutions to tailor their curriculum to serve the needs of rural communities.

The Reverend Professor Seth Ayettey, Provost of the College of Health Sciences, noted that Ghana had very high rate of road-traffic accident cases and therefore, there was the need to have more skilled surgeons to handle victims. He explained that the anatomy of the face, head and neck was usually the target of these accidents and, therefore, the services of specialised surgeons were needed.

Prof. Ayettey said the College of Health Sciences as part of measures to stem the brain drain had embarked on training doctors in post-graduate courses locally with sponsorship from companies in the country. He said 21 companies were currently sponsoring about 60 post-graduate students with five million cedis a year per student for a period of four years.