– WHEN UHAS TAKES OFF IN WITH 200 STUDENTS IN SEPTEMBER

The Volta Regional Hospital is to be upgraded into a Teaching Hospital soon coupled with official take off of the much awaited University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in September this year as promised by the governing council of the newly established university.
“We are on the ground and ready to start work in September 2012, with the first intake of 200 students,”
The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Professor Fred Binkah, announced this at a public forum to interact with stakeholders and the general public on the status of the new university at Ho.
Prof. Binkah, said discussions were still ongoing with the Ministry of Health and the Ghana health Services to finalize the status of the Regional Hospital whilst plans to upgrade the facility will start soon.
Prof. Binkah said, apart from the Regional Hospital serving as the UHAS Teaching Hospital, students would also be attached to other hospitals across the region for their practical training of eight weeks at the end of each semester.
Prof Binka said with time UHAS is set to absorb all the Ministry of Health training institutions in the region such as the Nursing, Midwifery, Community Health Nursing, and School of Hygiene among other so that they can offer courses in line with the university’s curricular.
He said, UHAS is a technical entity build with two main pillars, community service and research as important components of every programme.
He said, the council of university had already submitted the programmes to be offered by UHAS to the National Accreditation Board( NAB) and was sure by May Accreditation would be given and that as soon as that clearance was given by NAB advertisements for applications for admissions would be put out in the media in May.
He said, work on the permanent site of the university at Sokode-Lokoe had begun, giving the assurance that structures would be in place before the second batch of students would be admitted next academic year.
He explained that for now, the incubatory facilities had been put in place to provide the needed platform for the start of the university.
The Chairman of the UHAS Council, Professor Kofi Anyidoho, said all key officers needed for the take-off of the university had been interviewed including deans for the various faculties had been interviewed.
He said that much work had been done in terms of temporal infrastructure needed, but more needed to be done.
“If people were not seeing physical structures as they wanted to, it was because “a university is not like a mushroom that one wakes up one day to find.” He said
The Volta Regional Minister, Mr. Henry Ford Kamel, thought much had been done with the progress of the university not much progress made had not been properly communicated to the people of the Volta Region and Ghanaians at large.

He however hoped that frequent interactions would keep the public informed with development that occurred in the actualization of the promise of a university for the Volta Region.
There would be eight courses to be pursued by students such as Bachelor’s degrees in Basic & Biomedical Sciences, Allied Health Sciences, Nursing & Midwifery, Public Health and Dentistry.

The rest are Pharmacy, Medicine and Graduate School for Sports and Exercise Medicine.
The UHAS was one of two public universities promised by President John Evans Atta Mills, the other is The University for Energy and Natural Resources in the Brong Ahafo Region.

Murtala M. Bako, Ho
Murtalabako1995@yahoo.com