Allied Health Professions Council inducts 2,800 graduates

The  Allied Health Professions Council has sworn in 2,800 qualified allied health graduates who successfully completed various programmes in their respective institutions.

Those inducted were audiologists, community mental health officers, diagnostic radiographers, dieticians, disease control officers, doctors of medical laboratory science, environmental health officers, health information and promotion officers.

The rest were medical laboratory scientists, medical physicists, nutritionists, optometrists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, respiratory therapists, sonographers, speech and language therapists and radiographers.

The inductees would be required to undertake a one-year internship programme and also write a licensure examination to fully qualify to practice. 

The event which took place in Accra on Thursday was on the theme: “Eliminating quacks to promote quality healthcare in achieving universal health coverage: The role of the allied health professional”.

Service to nation

The acting Registrar of the council, Daniel Atta-Nyarko, congratulated the inductees and urged them to utilise their skills in serving the country.

He encouraged them to approach their roles with compassion, integrity and commitment to lifelong learning. 

“I quite understand that the need to seek greener pastures has taken over so many of our young professionals. I believe that a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder approach is needed to address the complex issue of the exodus of allied health professionals in order to establish a healthcare system that will attract and maintain qualified professionals in the country,” the acting registrar said.

He said the council will continue to uphold its mandate of ensuring patient safety, quality of care and regulatory compliance within the healthcare delivery system.

“That is why the council, with support from experts from the Federation of Allied Health Professionals this year, embarked on a quack-elimination to safeguard and protect the interest of citizens,” Atta-Nyarko said. 

The Dean of the School of Biomedical and Allied Health Sciences at the College of Health Science, University of Ghana, Prof. Samuel Antwi Boafo, advised the graduates to show empathy in their work.

The Board Chairman of the Allied Health Professions Council, Prof. Augustine Kwame Kyere, urged them to go through registration, licensing and renewal after their internship and exams.

A Deputy Minister of Health, Alhaji Mahama Asei Seini, congratulated the inductees and asked them to uphold the tenets of the profession.

Robust mechanism

The Country Representative of WHO, Dr Francis Kasolo, said quacks in the allied health system were a serious threat to the gains made by the country in its journey towards attaining universal health coverage.

He charged the council to establish a robust mechanism to verify and authenticate educational qualifications and credentials submitted by applicants, while collaborating with other regulatory and law enforcement agencies to investigate and sanitise the profession.