Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye, the nominee minister of health, has declared that he will collaborate with medical professionals to identify strategies for lowering the number of health workers who leave the country in search of better opportunities outside.
Dr. Okoe Boye stressed in his first interview following his appointment on February 14 that sometimes engagements and partnerships have a greater impact on a social group’s feelings than the initiatives a government or leader conducts.
“Sometimes, it is not the programs you introduce but the relationships you make and keep, and having the right things in place,” he said to Bernard Avle during the Citi Breakfast Show on Citi FM. People will know they have someone eager to listen to them and support them in reaching their goals when you converse with them. You will undoubtedly leave your mark if the stakeholders are satisfied and know what you stand for.
He also mentioned the two key initiatives that President John Agyekum Kufuor put in place between 2001 and 2009 to curb the outflow of medical personnel.
“When Kufour came, there were two major interventions that he put in place and all of a sudden, the immigration of doctors slowed down. He established the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, and before he came, for you to become a specialist, you had to go to Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and others had to go to the UK to be a specialist.”
“So I will meet them, and when you meet those in the field, they can tell you two, three things that when you put in place, their state of mind and pressure calm down, and I believe it is possible.”
