The Minister of Health (MoH), Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has asked doctors in public hospitals to desist from referring patients to private clinics for the doctors’ own financial gains.
He alleged that some doctors were in the habit of referring patients to private clinics, only for those doctors to meet the patients later at those facilities for consultation, saying: “This practice must stop. You must live by your Hippocratic Oath and eschew unethical practices.”
This was contained in a speech read on behalf of the minister by one of his deputies, Mr Alexander Kwodwo Kom Abban, at the 16th Annual General and Scientific Meeting (AGSM) of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons in Accra.
It was on the theme: “Disability: Health and socio-economic impact”.
The occasion was also used to induct 167 new members and 47 fellows into the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons. Mr Agyeman-Manu also called on doctors not to leave the country after they had been trained with taxpayers’ money and admonished them to serve the country with diligence and dedication.
The minister commended the college for the training of various specialties and appealed to the management to include Psychiatry, Oncology and Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) in the programme.
He enumerated some of efforts the government had made to make life comfortable for persons living with disability (PWDs) and urged the college to make appropriate inputs into the review of an ongoing National Disability Policy.
The Head of the Weija Leprosarium, Rev. Fr Andrew Campbell, admonished health professionals to be kind to the poor, disabled, needy and marginalised in society, saying: “They too are God’s creation.”
He recounted the difficulties he encountered whenever he took lepers to the hospital for care. Fr Campbell also said it was disappointing that, 13 years after the country passed the Disability Act, the plight of PWDs had not changed.
Source:Fiilafmonline/Graphic
