Albert Acquah
Garden City University College (GCUC) in Kumasi has won an international award for promoting the training of health professionals.
The private university picked up the Special Recognition Award at the maiden African Healthcare Awards ceremony held in Lagos, Nigeria, recently for providing training and support to students and academics.
The Zenith Global Health, a UK-based organisation which fosters education, collaboration and shared learning among healthcare professionals globally, organised the award ceremony.
The award will allow GCUC greater access to research funding to do more ground-breaking work in the training of healthcare professionals in Ghana, while appreciating the contribution of the founder of the university, Albert Acquah, in the promotion of healthcare delivery in the country.
A citation accompanying the award said the ‘Special Recognition’ award is to acknowledge the positive impact and role of the university in training healthcare professionals.
Commenting on the award, the President of the GCUC, Professor Edward Kwame Asante, said even though it was in recognition of the pioneering role of the founder in health professional’s education, “it also attests to the impact GCUC is making in the training of quality health professionals for the country and the West African sub-region.”
Mr. Acquah, a certified professional accountant resident in the US, set up the Garden City University College as an ICT training centre in 2001, and in 2004 converted it into a university college, offering programmes in business, health and allied sciences.
GCUC, which is affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), is the only private university in Ghana offering dental therapy.
It also offers nursing, physician assistant, midwifery and medical laboratory technician programmes among others, and the university college has churned out thousands of health professionals since its inception.
By Ernest Kofi Adu