Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education, says government is committed to expanding infrastructural projects at the University of Ghana Medical School to admit more students to study medicine and dentistry.
He said other medical schools would also have their facilities expanded to absorb the pool of eligible students graduating from the Free Senior High Schools programme to improve the doctor-patient ratio.
That, the Minister explained, was crucial in achieving Sustainable Development Goal three- “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.”
Mrs Gifty Twum Ampofo, the Deputy Minister for Education in charge of Technical and Vocational Education and Training, said this in a speech on behalf of the Minister at the 6oth anniversary of UGMS, on the theme: “Building on 60 Years of Quality Medical Education: The Role of Technology.”
Dr Adutwum said the Government recognised that there had not been any major expansion of facilities of the School since its establishment for, which reason it was unable to admit more students.
“I am reliably informed that issues like hostel accommodation, transportation of students and expansion of clinical teaching sites have been some of the challenges hampering teaching and learning in the school,” he said and called on corporates and international organisations to collaborate with the Government to support the expansion drive for medical training in the country.
“We are all potential patients who stand to benefit from these investments for the ultimate benefit of ourselves, families and society.”
The Minister stated that while the Government was working on the provision of laptops to students and faculty of the University of Ghana, Legon, the Ministry also recognised that advanced simulation was the future for medical schools.
“We are prepared to dialogue to see how we can support the transition so that UGMS becomes the leader in the use of technology for medical education in the sub-region. This will widen its reach to more students interested in studying medicine while leveraging the technological revolution of our time.”
Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, the Minister of Health, said medical education had evolved with the introduction of electronic platforms for didactic lectures and demonstrations, stressing that the dissection of real bodies for students had now been replaced with simulations in the teaching of anatomy.
Technology, he stated, had helped in diagnosing and sequencing COVID-19 virus and its variants and enhanced automatic interpretation of heart sounds.
He said Artificial Intelligence was now the engine that drove improvement across the care continuum because it allowed humans to gain insights into diagnostics, care processes, treatment variability and patient outcomes.
The Ministry, he announced, would soon launch the e-health project and leverage technology to improve processes at agency levels towards ensuring that no one was left behind in accessing healthcare delivery.
Professor Julius Fobil, Provost, College of Health Sciences, University of Ghana, said the anniversary would be commemorated with a line of activities, including blood donation, public lectures, symposium, exhibition, awards ceremony and thanksgiving service.
The idea to establish a Ghana Medical School was conceived in 1919 when the Korle-Bu Hospital was built by the then Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg.
It was, however, shelved when the Governor left office and revived in the 1960s under the Kwame Nkrumah regime.
Korle-Bu became a teaching hospital because it temporarily housed the School.
In 1969, when the School was about to graduate its first batch of students, it became necessary to incorporate it into the University of Ghana to enable it to issue academic certificates to the graduating students and the name became the University of Ghana Medical School.
