The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare has said no female students from the Muslim communities popularly known as Zongo were sent to Cuba for training in the administration of former President John Mahama.
Speaking at the Al Sunna Eid Prayers as part of the of Eid ul Adha celebration in Accra, on Tuesday, August 13, 2019, Mahama said the NDC government included Muslim women in a list of Ghanaian students who were supposed to be trained as doctors in Cuba.
He said the women doctors were deliberately sent to specifically cater for the needs of women when they return to their communities.
He stated: “About six years ago, when we got scholarships to send some of our children to Cuba to train as doctors, there was something significant we did. We deliberately decided to source girls from the Muslim communities to be part of the training, especially in the area of gyneacology.
“Our Muslim women who have difficulty when they have to go and consult medically for their reproductive health, prefer that a female doctor looks after them.
“Our plan was to train female doctors from our Muslim community, so that when they come back, we can strategically place them. That will make it possible for our mothers and others who want to consult for their reproductive health to have our sisters who have qualified as doctors to be able to look after them.”
However, Dr. Asare said no girl from the Zongo community were selected for training in gynaecology in Cuba.
“No student was trained in gynaecology from the batch sent to Cuba then as claimed by former President John Mahama. In all, there were 217 General Practitioners and two Physiotherapists in that batch,” he noted.
Dr Nsiah Asare added: “ne needs to graduate as a General Practitioner before he or she can even specialise. So, it is wrong for the former President to allude that they deliberately sent female students to Cuba to be trained in gynaecology when they had not even been trained as general practitioners.
“It is the current government [NPP government] which has sent 30 graduates to specialise in Cuba, which is a novelty.”
