Patients drift to alternative medicine as doctors strike continues

People seeking medical care are increasingly drifting to alternative medical practitioners for attention as medical doctors continue with their industrial action.

Members of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) have been on strike for the past four weeks over unpaid allowances and other welfare issues.

The situation has crippled activities in government health facilities, forcing patients to turn to private and missionary health centers to access healthcare.

Luv News checks also indicate patients are trooping to herbal and alternative medical centres to access treatment.

One of such patients is Madam Janet Nair, a 55 year old trader who lives in the Aboabo suburb of Kumasi. She had been seeking medical care at the Manhyia Government Hospital and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

Prior to the current strike by the doctors, she was in the process of receiving treatment for her waist pain at the Komfo Anokye Hospital. In her frustration to get care, she resorted to an alternative health center and now she says there is an improvement in her condition.

Madam Janet is among several patients who frequent M.Y. Ventures, an alternative natural healthcare center in Kumasi.

According to Dr. Caesar, Chief Executive of M.Y. Ventures, there has been an increase in number of patients within the period of the strike, though he attributes this partly to new investments in his operations.

“We have added some equipment to our work prior to the doctors’ strike so we don’t actually know whether it is as a result of the strike or the improvements in our work that give the difference”, he stated.

He however admits such health facilities are limited in meeting the needs of patients, especially in surgical and other complicated ailments.

Dr. Caesar has therefore describes as shameful the country’s current state of health delivery.

“We should be ashamed of ourselves; this is not going to the doctors, it is collective”, he emphasized. “Whatever brought about this problem is what is making us ashamed – imagine your dear one dying just like that, not because there are no drugs or no doctors but because of a common strike”.

The alternative medical practitioner has enjoined the government to be proactive in tackling issues in the medical front.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

Fomena Nursing Training School decries abandoned infrastructure upgrading

The Community Health Nurses’ Training School at Fomena in the Adansi North District of Ashanti recorded a 99.4 percent pass rate in the 2012 Community Health Nursing Licensing examinations. 

The school has consistently performed creditably in the exams, organized by the Nurses’ and Midwives Council of Ghana.

The academic laurels have however been achieved in the midst of poor infrastructural development and inadequate tutorial staff.

According to Principal of the school, Mrs. Lynda Rockson Banful Mante, the constraints “make transfer and posting to the school unattractive… and affecting the progress of the school in terms of residential accommodation for students, especially the males, library, skill acquisition laboratory, lecture halls among others”.

She was addressing the 5^th matriculation ceremony of the school at Fomena. Of the 1,517 qualified applicants for the 2012/2013 academic year, the school could only admit 251, representing 12 percent of those interviewed.

The low intake has been attributed to the limited infrastructure to accommodate the students.

The Principal says work to complete part of the school’s abandoned infrastructure has stalled due to lack of funds.

She has therefore appealed to the government and other stakeholders to resource the school in the delivery of quality training.

 “As much as the school appreciates the efforts of the Ministry of Health and other major stakeholders of the school to ensure that these abandoned structures are completed, we would still continue to make a passionate appeal to the government to provide the needed funds for the completion of these might structures which will address most of our challenges and also facilitate the accreditation of the school to offer additional higher nursing programmes”, stated Mrs. Banful Mante.

The Fomena nursing school is in the process of getting affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and also going through accreditation to offer Diploma in Community Health Nursing to provide preventive, promotional and rehabilitative healthcare services.

The school currently runs a two year certificate programme with the objective of training community health nurses to render primary healthcare services.

Community health nurses are the main service providers in the implementation of the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) by the Ministry of Health to make primary health care accessible to all.

District Chief Executive for Adansi North, Alhaji Abdul-Lateef Majdoub, announced government will soon construct a 120 bed capacity hospital at Fomena which will also serve as a practical training ground for the school.

He says the project will take 11 months to complete when construction takes off.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh