Ghana Health Service (GHS) is establishing staff clinics at regional hospitals dedicated to caring for the health needs of health workers.

The Director General of the Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma Aboagye, says the move is to ensure that staff go back to their work as quickly as possible.

He said they have noticed that health workers at the lower levels in the districts and communities who are not well may not be able to seek care at that level.

“So we are establishing staff clinics at the regional levels so that, irrespective of wherever you are based, you can access all the care. That is why we have asked the regional hospitals to establish staff clinics where people (health workers) can seek care quickly and go back to their work instead of coming to queue and not being known at that level”, he explained.

He asked regional health directors in regions without regional hospitals to identify the best hospitals in that region and create staff clinics there.

Dr. Kuma Aboagye said the move, among other things, would improve staff welfare and encourage them to give off their best.

He spoke at the closing ceremony of the 4th patient safety and healthcare quality conference 2022 in Sunyani in the Bono Region.

The three-day conference was under the theme “Advancing Patient Safety and Quality during Public Health Emergencies”.

It brought together stakeholders and partners in the health sector to, among other things, create national awareness of patient safety and healthcare quality, build capacity in quality management among frontline improvement, and identify policies and research gaps in patient safety and healthcare quality in Ghana.

 The conference also climaxed with a sod-cutting to commemorate patient safety day to create awareness of medication safety.

According to the Director General of the GHS, Dr. Patrick Kuma Aboagye, their existence as a service in the health sector is to ensure that patients are safe.

He said the Service would continue to put in systems to ensure that the safety of patients, as a process, improves.

“Quality is a process, patient’s safety is a process, and so we continue to improve the services to ensure that the patient’s services are number one”, he said, and further added that “what we are saying is that you should not be harmed when you come to our facilities. You should rather receive care and go back healthy”.

He admits they are operating human institutions, and they would continue to put in systems and remind themselves of their mission and work towards it.