She said the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) over the years has provided the Regional Health Directorate with free office accommodation to discharge its duties.  Dr Sarpong gave the commendation at a dinner dance at the residence of the Regional Minister in Accra to climax a three-day working visit in the Greater Accra Region by members of the Ghana Health Service Council.

The visit was to afford the Council members to familiarise themselves with the challenges confronting health facilities in the country. The exercise, which began in Ada, saw the Council members tour the Pediatorkope Health Centre, Adedetsekope CHPs Compound, the Ada East District Hospital and the Luhuor CHPs compound.

They also inspected the construction of a polyclinic project in Ada West and the Sege Health Centre. The team also visited the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge) and had a durbar with the staff to know how best to address some of their problems as well as to motivate them to do their best.

Dr Sarpong expressed the directorate’s gratitude to the RCC for its support for all the years in ensuring that healthcare delivery in the region was enhanced.   Dr Yao Yeboah, the Chairman of the Ghana Health Service Council, also commended the Minister for also organising the dinner and get together dance to climax their activities.

He said the Council had taken note of all the challenges confronting the facilities and notably among them were staff accommodation, human resources, hospital equipment, postings to deprived areas of which a committee had been set up to help in that regard to ensure they would be factored into the 2019 budget.

The Chairman said the Council was already in talks with companies to help put up an accommodation facility on hospital lands for rentals to improve on the condition. He said the Council had plans of making the country’s ultra-modern hospital infrastructure (Ridge hospital) a means to attract direct foreign exchange and as such a committee had been put up to help revamp the system to make it an international referral centre of excellence.

This, Dr Yeboah said, when successfully done, would see people in the diaspora and sister countries come to Ghana to seek medical attention as well as train doctors from other nations and vise versa.

Mr Ishmeal Ashitey pledged the RCC’s continues support to the council and its stakeholders in the sector to improve the quality of healthcare in the country.