Some health professionals in the Upper East Region have expressed divergentviews relative to the annual refusal of trained doctors to accept postings to the Upper East Region. This came up during the 2021 Annual Performance Review Conference of the Upper East Regional Health directorate in Bolgatanga.
Speaking exclusively to word news in Bolgatanga, Mr. Albert Atuga, a physician assistant in the Chuchuliga Health centre in the Builsa North Municipality expressed worries about how some health professionals like nurses, Midwives and others are usually maltreated when they have refuse postings to some parts of the country by some authorities at the national Health directorate to the extend of blockage of salaries, yet the same cannot be done to doctors who refuse posting to the Upper East Region.
“you those who are at the top how come a nurse refuses posting and you block their salary and a doctor refuse to come, they have been given an appointment letter, how can the director general who will post someone here and the person refuse to go to a different place to work and that person salary is process and will be work on , the person will feel comfortable in Accra and then we add that one as challenges , how can this be a challenge, why should that one be a challenge , no then if they are doing that , they should not suppress we those at the low level, yes my salary should not be blocked, yes you can’t do that to a doctor who is under the Director General and you add to a challenge then we are not helping ourselves” he lamented.
Dr. Emmanuel Dzotsi, the Upper East Regional Director of Health Services bemoaned the low number of critical health professionals in the region, which is affecting health delivery due to some of the critical staff not willing to accept postings to the region.
According to him, about 10 medical officers in 2021 were posted to the region, but none of them reported, “The Region is perceived as unattractive and there is therefore great difficulty in attracting and retaining critical staffs as Doctors, Midwives, Professional Nurses, and Physician Assistants, very worrying situation to note is that, of the 10 medical officers posted to the region in 2021, none reported to work in the region”.
He added that the human resource remains the most critical resource in every organization, and for our topical battle against Maternal Deaths, there is acute shortage of critical Human Resource such as doctors and midwives in the Upper East region.
“In the year under review 2021, Doctor to population ratio stands at 1:24,097 and Midwife to Women in Fertility Age (WIFA) population ratio stands at 1:433. As of 1st December 2022; the region could count nine specialist doctors, 42 General Medical Officers, 2 Dental Medical Officers and 721 Midwives. These numbers are woefully inadequate to take care of over 1 million (1,318,351) population of the Upper East Region,
Critical health staff required are Specialists Doctors, Medical Officers, Physician Assistants, Midwives, Laboratory Scientists and many other support staff. New Medical Officers and Specialists (including Obstetricians/Gynaecologists) posted to the Region feel reluctant or fail to assume duties while there is also a high attrition rate”.
Source: mywordfmonline.com Gaspard Ayuureneeya.