Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor
Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor, yesterday, paid glowing tributes to Ghanaian medical practitioners who have over the years rendered, as he put it, selfless service to their compatriots even as he advocated novelties in medical practice in the country.
The former Minister of Defence and the Interior was speaking as chairman during the 60th anniversary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital under the theme ‘The Role Of The Medical Association In Healthcare-60 Years On.’
Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor, who is a past President of GMA, asked the association to engage the universities to undertake periodic surveys to determine how they are faring in the eyes of members of the public they are serving.
He recalled a 2015 survey at a polyclinic in Accra which indicated that 58.1 percent of the patients were satisfied with the services they received while 41.9 percent were not. He said he disagreed with this finding but think the true figure lies somewhere between the two estimates.
He charged the GMA to urge its members to wear white coats and name tags for identification ‘when attending to patients in the wards and at the Out-Patient Department.’
He told his audience during the second part of his delivery about the need for doctors to be friendly to their patients, as a survey conducted recently has observed some of them are not. ‘Some doctors are unfriendly, intolerant and impatient in listening to patients,’ he said.
Some doctors, he went on, according to the survey report ‘discriminate in the treatment of patients- they are influenced by the financial status of the patient.’
While some doctors do not report to work early and are sometimes not at their duty points others, he went on, ‘give the impression that they are doing a favour to the public rather than offering a service for which they are paid.’
Another aspect of the report, he indicated, states that while some doctors are, as he put it, ‘too technical and do not communicate details of patients illnesses in the language the patients understand’ others, he added, are sometimes intimidating.
Continuing, he said ‘some doctors sometimes stay on the phone while attending to patients and therefore unable to give full attention to the patient.’
No human institution is perfect, he said, but was quick to add that, “If I may borrow a comment oft repeated by teachers in assessment reports, ‘there is room for improvement’. Our people deserve better”
The GMA, he recalled, was formed shortly after independence in 1958 to, as he put it, sever the Gold Coast branch from the British Medical Association.
‘Early in 1958, a doctor called J.A. Schandorf, who had recently arrived in Ghana, put an advert in the Daily Graphic indicating that an organization ‘the Ghana Medical Association would be formed which would be recognized by the government and serve as the mouthpiece of the medical profession. The GMA, he went on, was eventually born on 4th January 1958 at the Arden Hall of the Ambassador Hotel in Accra.
Dr. Nkrumah, then the guest speaker, declared ‘the Ghana Medical Association is duly launched’. That was when the journey of the GMA began.
By A.R. Gomda