According to a report in the online news site called MyJoyOnline, “a clinic in Kumasi suspected to be performing illegal abortion and other gynaecologic procedures without the requisite licensing has been shut down by Ghana’s Health Facility Regulatory Agency (HeFRA). The clinic is among nine facilities locked up in a two-day exercise aimed at ‘sanitising the health service delivery sector’. All nine were found to be unlicensed with some recruiting persons with no training in the health profession.”
The report continues: “At the time of the visit, the inspection team picked unhygienic and unregistered medical equipment used in surgical procedures. Personnel performing medical services were also unlicensed. We saw several equipment that seemed were being used but have not been washed or cleaned. We saw the operating table and the state it was in. It wasn’t in the best of shape. We didn’t meet the Doctor that works there but the people that were picked didn’t have a license to say they were nurses or whatever.”
The goal of these efforts is ensuring safety of the public. “We don’t have interest in closing people’s businesses down. We want more private participation in the sector but we want to make sure that they adhere to quality standards.”
HeFRA was established in 2011 by the Health Institutions and Facilities Act, 2011 (Act 829), to license health facilities for the provision of public and private health care services. It is also mandated to register and monitor operations of all health facilities to set standards for quality health care delivery in all facilities across the country.
SOURCE + PHOTOS: MyJoyOnline.com, by Nana Yaw Gyimah, 23 February 2021
FOOTNOTE: At the end of this article is a link to a personal experience of abortion, entitled: What it really feels like to have an abortion. Source: Yourtango, 6 February 2021. It is a very moving report, written by someone from the USA (not Ghana), and ends as follows:
“I don’t wish abortion on anyone. But freedom to choose, I demand that for everyone.”