Mrs. Tina Gifty Mensah, Deputy Minister of Health has said her outfit will improve the health status of Ghanaians through development, promotion of proactive policies, provision of universal access to basic health service, quality and affordable health service.

She said it could, however, be achieved through an efficient and effective way by well-trained friendly, highly motivated, compassionate and client-oriented health workers.

Mrs. Mensah stated this at the opening of a two-day selection meeting of applications for the Public Health Training Institutions for 2018/2019 Academic year held at Winneba.

Principals, Accountants, Administrators were among participants at the meeting from 109 health training institutions made up of 22 private and 87 public institutions in the country.

The meeting themed “quality Training: A Contributor to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (3) was part of the process to admit students into the health training institutions for 2018/2019 academic year.

Mrs Mensah said the theme was appropriate as the airwaves were flooded with numerous cases of medical malpractices in various health facilities and announced that, the Ministry of Health was in the process of reducing the intake of auxiliary nurses by 2019/2020 academic year as some schools would be converted to Post NAC/NAP midwifery schools and be resourced accordingly.

“The Ministry will be auditing all health training schools before the year ends and any Principal found liable to any audit query shall be dealt with accordingly as enshrined in the laws of the country.

“Those individuals who are also found using Internally Generated Found for capital projects without the necessary approval from the Ministry should desist from such acts,” she stated.

She encouraged all Principals to comply strictly with the quota given for this year’s admission and reminded all heads of various training institutions that cordial relationship among management and tutors in all schools was vital in equipping trainees with the requisite competencies needed for quality healthcare delivery.

She said that all heads must ensure that academic excellence was not compromised and student discipline must be maintained at all times, adding that in view of the limited clinical training site and Health Tutors, all request from both public and private sector for permission to establish new nursing programmes or schools had been put on hold.

She pledged the Ministry’s readiness to provide the right leadership and direction in the training of healthcare workers to ensure that trainees, midwives and colleges in the allied domain were given the required training towards the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Dr Kwesi Asabir, Head of Health training Institutions said the Ministry of Health’s has a vision for national development could be achieved through training of well-motivated health workers to deliver quality health care services.

According to him the Sustainable Development Goal 3 looked at making quality Healthcare accessible and affordable to every Ghanaian and added that his Ministry’s vision is in that line.

“Our duty as critical stakeholders (Public and Private) is to understand our roles in the process of achieving the laudable vision of the Ministry of Health and the SDG 3, the Global agenda by 2030”, he added.