NCHS BIOMEDICAL SCIENTISTS UPGRADE SKILLS

Biomedical Scientist drawn from 25 health facilities within the National Catholic Health Service (NCHS) have undergone a two-week training at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Ghana under an NCHS and West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) partnership programme.

The collaboration constitutes the beginning of research and training between NCHS and WACCBIP for the purpose of building capacity within health institutions in laboratory diagnostics including biochemistry, molecular medicine, immunology, and microbiology and conduct joint research into infectious diseases.

At the official Opening of the workshop, the Director of WACCBIP, Prof. Gordon Awandare, expressed delight at the implementation of the training. He mentioned WACCBIP’s commitment to the collaboration and reiterated his outfit’s mandate of providing training anchored on research environment where Scientists can develop their capacities to drive innovation and promised participants of an excellent experience .

Rev. Fr. Wisdom Larweh, Assistant Secretary General of the National Catholic Secretariat, speaking on behalf of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Ghana (CBCG), thanked WACCBIP for the support and pledged the conference’s commitment to the collaboration. Fr. Larweh acknowledged the tremendous breakthroughs in the fields of genetics, molecular biology, as well as in transplants and the neurological science and stated that among the factors that contributed to the breakthrough is certainly biomedical research. In this sector of medicine, as St. Pope John Paul II pointed out in 2003: “It is a recognized fact that improvements in the medical treatment of disease primarily depend on progress in research”, he said.

Present at the ceremony were Dr. Lydia Mosi, Head of the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Ghana, (BCMB-UG) Mr. George Adjei, Director, National Catholic Health Services (NCHS) and the Workshop Coordinators, Drs. Patrick Kobina Arthur, Ernest Konadu Asiedu, Raphael Adu-Gyamfi.

Participants are expected to build their research capacities for occupational research after the training.