University for Development Studies to train more doctors with Israeli support
The University for Development Studies (UDS) is to increase its intake of medical students to train more doctors to administer health care to people in the country and beyond.
To this end, UDS has entered into an agreement with the Galilee International Management Institute (GIMI), based in Israel, to undertake a joint medical programme to provide quality teaching and learning in the area of medical training to students within the West Africa sub-region and beyond.
The UDS / GIMI Joint Medical Programme, which would be run on fee-paying basis beginning the next academic year, (February 2014), would see students spend their last two clinical years of training in Israel and Italy and return to the UDS for their final examinations.
Speaking at the launch of the UDS/GIMI Joint Medical Programme, in Tamale on Thursday, Professor Haruna Yakubu, Vice Chancellor of UDS, said it would complement the efforts UDS was making in the area of training health service personnel for the country and the sub-region in general.
Professor Yakubu said the demand for the UDS Medical Programme by applicants in the Sub-region was high, explaining, “This joint programme in medical training is opportune as it will meet the demand by providing admission to these applicants from the Sub-region.”
He said the UDS /GIMI Joint Medical Programme would operate on the same problem-based learning method used by the Medical School of UDS to train the needed manpower for the health sector.
Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, Northern Regional Minister, who represented the President, commended UDS and its partner for the initiative, saying, there was need to train especially more doctors to administer health care to the people.
Alhaji Limuna called for support for the initiative to ensure success.
Ms Sharon Bar-li, Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, said the UDS / GIMI Joint Medical Programme marked additional channel of collaboration in the field of medicine between Ghana and Israel to improve health care services.
Dr Abdulai Baba Salifu, Chairman of the Governing Council of UDS, described the collaboration as an innovation, which would ensure the growth of medical training in the country as more qualified students would be offered admission to read medicine.
Dr Joseph Shevel, President of GIMI, said a lot of students from the sub-region travelled outside for medical studies, explaining that the UDS / GIMI Joint Medical Programme had come as a solution to this phenomenon whiles offering quality medical training.
Source: GNA