By Adnan Adams Mohammed
Ghana’s Ministry of Health recently launched a strategic plan document to guide the health sector overall performance with regards to public health.
The document named “Public Health Workforce Strategic Plan” was launched at an event in Accra last month on the theme ‘Building a Resilient One Health Public Health Workforce in Ghana’ with the aim of ensuring better response to emerging public health threats.
The ‘Public Health Workforce Strategic Plan’ will provide prompt access and the highest quality health services through equitable deployment and retention of qualified workforce in Ghana’s human, animal and environmental health. The Health Ministry developed the guide in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to develop this document to guide the country on its health workforce needs.
“The document would support in addressing some weaknesses in the health workforce, particularly recruitment, workforce distribution, staff development, and employee motivation and employee migration”, Deputy Minister for Health, Hon Tina Gifty Mensah said at the launch. “The Public Health Workforce Strategic Plan is a five-year document which presents a road map that would guide the restructuring of the Human resource of the public health workforce and ensure that the Universal Health Coverage target is fully achieved, using the One Health Concept by 2030.”
The Director General of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, in his remarks commended the timeliness of the Strategic plan since there was no document guiding the inter-sectoral collaboration.
“Practically, Covid-19 made us implement the Public Health Strategic Plan even before the launch, and I believe that this document will guide the inter-sectorial collaboration and once we have been doing it unknowingly because of Covid, we should not wait for any public health emergency before we think of bringing other health sectors who have a stake in addressing public health issues” he added
The Public Health Division of the Ministry of Health is of the key Divisions in Ghana Health Service structure. The Division leads and ensures development and implementation of policies and strategic plans and programmes that protect, promote and improve public health and contribute to the overall health and socio-economic status of families and communities. It is responsible for: Safeguarding and improving the health of the general population or communities; Developing public health interventions targeted at people in communities; and Promoting general socio-economic development, preventing diseases, promoting healthy practices, treating diseases (especially mass treatment), and rehabilitating patients afflicted with diseases Developing partnerships with relevant stakeholders.
The priorities of the Division include: Strengthening epidemiological surveillance on priority diseases; Ensuring early detection and effectively controlling epidemic prone and priority endemic diseases; Strengthening routine immunization through the Reaching Every Child (REC) approach.
The Division is headed by a Director and has the following two main Departments under it: Disease Surveillance Department and Disease Control and Prevention Department.
The Public Health Department coordinates the planning and implementation of public health activities in the regions mainly in communicable disease control and surveillance, reproductive, adolescent and child health, nutrition and health promotion.
