Background

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) is a Public Service body established under Act 525 of 1996 as required by the 1992 constitution. It is an autonomous Executive Agency responsible for implementation of national policies under the control of the Minister for Health through its governing Council - the Ghana Health Service Council. The GHS continue to receive public funds and thus remain within the public sector. However, its employees will no longer be part of the civil service, and GHS managers will no longer be required to follow all civil service rules and procedures. The independence of the GHS is designed primarily to ensure that staffs have a greater degree of managerial flexibility to carry out their responsibilities, than would be possible if they remained wholly within the civil service. Ghana Health Service does not include Teaching Hospitals, Private and Mission Hospitals

Rationale

The establishment of the Ghana Health Service is an essential part of the key strategies identified in the Health Sector Reform process, as outlined in the Medium Term Health Strategy (MTHS), which are necessary steps in establishing a more equitable, efficient, accessible and responsive health care system.

The reforms build on the reorganization of the MOH that began in 1993, which was explicitly designed to set the scene for the establishment of the Ghana Health Service. The reforms also provide a sound organizational framework for the growing degree of managerial responsibility that has already been delegated to districts and hospitals. Themes that were central to the reorganization of 1993 remain important today for the Ghana Health Service: careful stewardship of scare resources, clear lines of responsibility and control, decentralization, and accountability for performance rather than inputs.

Mandate

To provide and prudently manage comprehensive and accessible health service with special emphasis on primary health care at regional, district and sub-district levels in accordance with approved national policies

Objectives

The objects of the Service are to:

• Implement approved national policies for health delivery in the country.
• Increase access to good quality health services, and
• Manage prudently resources available for the provision of the health services.

•  Develop appropriate strategies and set technical guidelines to achieve national policy goals/objectives
• Undertake management and administration of the overall health resources within the service
•  Promote healthy mode of living and good health habits by people
• Establish effective mechanism for disease surveillance, prevention and control
• Determine charges for health services with the approval of the Minister of Health
• Provide in-service training and continuing education
• · Perform any other functions relevant to the promotion, protection and restoration of health.

Founded in 1979, the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research is one of Africa’s leading biomedical research institutions. It is made up of 280 staff members and divided into nine major departments: animal experimentation, bacteriology, clinical pathology, electron microscopy and histopathology, epidemiology, immunology, nutrition, parasitology, and virology.  The institute focuses primarily on research into infectious diseases such as malaria, soil-transmitted helminthiasis and schistosomiasis, filariasis (lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis), HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, buruli ulcer, poliomyelitis, sexually transmitted infections, viral hemorrhagic fevers, diarrheal diseases, and vaccine-preventable diseases.

NMIMR recently provided key technical assistance to fight malaria and organized international training programs to help eliminate lymphatic filariasis and parasitic diseases such as guinea worm. In the past year, the institute also worked to build capacity for diagnosis of avian influenza and expanded its research into noncommunicable conditions such as heart disease and cancer.  It is currently expanding its research into noninfectious diseases and other issues of public health importance such as diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, micronutrients, infant and maternal mortality, sickle cell disease, cancer plant medicine, allergies, and environmental pollution. 

The institute also conducts clinical trials (including on vaccines for malaria and rotavirus) and preclinical studies on drug products that involve in vitro and in vivo anti-malaria activity testing.