A three-day Special Senior Managers’ Meeting to interrogate and navigate the frontiers of translating policies into practice to better serve all citizens and residents in Ghana with quality and accessible health care to achieve Universal Health Coverage, has been organized by the Ghana Health Service. The meeting which commenced on Monday, 12th December and ended on Wednesday 14th December 2022 was themed “Policy and Practice for High-Performance Management and Health Service Delivery to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC)”.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye in his welcome address stated that the Service has, under the leadership of the GHS council, begun implementing several attraction and retention mechanisms, mainly non-monetary, such as early promotion and grant of approved study leave for staff in deprived areas. These mechanisms, he added, must evolve to include monetary incentives and the inculcation of a sense of Patriotism for upcoming health professionals. He appealed to all senior Managers to, by the end of the meeting, help deepen the dialogue on innovations and improve existing strategies for policy initiatives as well as identify key innovations and opportunities for improvements towards system strengthening.
The Director-General took the opportunity to highlight the issue of bullying amongst staff which has mostly been observed to be hierarchical and expertise based, where senior colleagues use their expertise and experience to dominate or intimidate younger colleagues. He emphasized that this form of bullying erodes the investment made in creating the enabling professional environment for younger professionals to feel belonged and look up to Senior colleagues for mentoring and coaching and charged all Senior Managers to institute measures to prevent and/or promptly detect such forms of bullying, offer the requisite forms of support to the bullied staff and met out appropriate punitive sanctions to the bullies in line with the code of conduct and disciplinary procedures. Dr. Kuma-Aboagye concluded by urging senior Managers to continue to demonstrate resilience and a high level of commitment as they work together to improve performance and prioritize improvements in the quest to provide quality healthcare services to everyone in Ghana.
Dr. Sefah S. Bediako, the Chairman of the GHS Council, stated that the meeting was aimed at bridging the gap between policy and practice to improve health, reduce health inequities, make the society more just, and the population happier. He commended the management and staff of the Service for their efforts and accomplishments over the years and encouraged them to keep working harder to enable them achieve Universal Health Coverage in their sphere of influence. He appealed to the public to always listen to the voices of health professionals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and allied health and support staff for all to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health.
Irene Akua Agyapong also delivered a speech on how Ghana Health Service has organized a three-day Special Senior Managers’ Meeting to interrogate and navigate the frontiers of translating policies into practice to better serve all citizens and residents in Ghana with quality and accessible health care to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
SOURCE: PR UNIT
