The Former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Agyeman Badu Akosa says there is lack of supervision in all professions in Ghana which makes practitioners unaware of the limitations of their practice.

According to him, having a supervisory body to oversee the activities of various professions, especially medical practitioners will prevent them from doing anything they desire.

His comments follow the suspension of the Ashanti Regional Director of the National Service Scheme, Mr. Alex Opoku-Mensah.

Mr. Opoku-Mensah was suspended for his involvement in an incident that occurred at the Manhyia Hospital between a medical practitioner (his daughter) and a nurse, as a result of which he verbally assaulted the nurse.

Speaking in an interview with JoyNews on Wednesday, Professor Akosa said, “It is important that everybody accepts and knows the limitation in terms of their professional work. I think one of the difficulties is that in this country there is a lack of supervision. There is a lack of supervision in all professional groupings in this country and it has allowed people to attempt to do what they like and in essence to go beyond what their capacity and capability permit them.”

The former Ghana Health Service boss continued that healthcare delivery professionals in Ghana need to learn from best practices.

“I have worked in the UK before and there’s no difficulty. Every professional group knows what they do and they do it very well and in the end, the patient gets better. Ghana hasn’t gotten to that stage yet,” he added.

Mr. Badu Akosa further urged all health professionals to reflect on their training, capacity, and capability to work together for the benefit of patients and the country at large.

Meanwhile, Mr. Alex Opoku-Mensah has been suspended for two months without pay for verbally abusing the nurse.

After the incident in November 2022, the National Service Scheme (NSS) on December 1, 2022, temporarily suspended him to make way for investigations following an emergency meeting.

However, a fresh directive from the NSS says Opoku-Mensah has been suspended for two months without remuneration. The suspension takes immediate effect.

This was after a committee completed its assignment and submitted its report to NSS management.