• Submitted by: manso
• International
• 03 / 17 / 2011

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Vice-President John Dramani Mahama with Mr Jose Ramon Machado Ventura at the Palace.The Cuban government has offered to assist Ghana to train 250 specialist doctors to beef up the human resource capacity of the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

The specialist doctors will train in areas such as anaesthetics, clinical pathology and haematology, internal medicine, general surgery, morbid anatomy and paediatrics.

The offer was the outcome of talks held between Vice- President John Mahama and Mr Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, the First Vice-President of the Councils of State and of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana on Monday.

As part of the offer, some Cuban specialist doctors will be deployed in some hospitals in deprived areas of Ghana to assist in healthcare delivery.

Currently, there are over 200 health personnel from the Cuban Medical Brigade, mostly working in deprived parts of Ghana.

Although the discussions were held behind closed doors, a highly placed source told journalists that the Cuban government requested Ghana to be responsible for the payment and upkeep of the specialist doctors who would be posted to Ghana.

The source explained that the arrangement to secure assistance from Cuba was in line with the government’s quest to bring healthcare delivery to the doorstep of every Ghanaian and achieve the Millennium Development Goals target on health by 2015.

The two vice-presidents agreed that while the Cuban doctors in Ghana had been deployed in deprived areas and some major health centres in Ghana, pragmatic steps should be taken to train Ghanaian doctors in specialised fields to take over from the Cubans.

The two governments have, therefore, set a timetable to work out the modalities for the immediate realisation of the agreements.

The discussion also focused on Ghana-Cuba relations, especially the mutual roles the two countries have played to support each other in times of difficulties.

Vice-President Ventura was happy with Ghana’s unrelenting support for his country in the face of the United States government’s over 40-year-old economic blockade on Cuba.

Accompanying the Vice-President are Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh,  Minister of Health; Mr David Sarpong Boateng, Ghana’s Ambassador to Cuba; Alhaji Huudu Yahaya, a Vice-President of the National Democratic Congress (NDC); Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah,  General Secretary of the NDC; Mr Kofi Attor,  Director of International Relations at the NDC Headquarters; Dr Elias Sory, Director-General of the GHS.

Others are Dr Hakeem Ahmed Wemah, a veterinary surgeon; Mr Biadela Mortey Akpadzi, the Executive Director of the Economic and Organised Crime Office, and Mr Roger Angsomwine, the Chief Director at the Office of the Vice- President.

Earlier, Vice-President Mahama laid two separate wreaths at the Monument to the Cuban National Hero, Jose Marti, and the Bust of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the First President of the Republic of Ghana, at the Africa National Heroes Park in Havana.

The short but impressive and colourful ceremonies were witnessed by government officials from both countries.

Mr Mahama was later conducted round the Jose Marti Memorial, where the historical antecedent of the Cuban Revolution was explained to him.

Source: www.graphic.com.gh/news/page.php?news=12066