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Health authorities have been advised to ensure that all devices and drugs supplied to health facilities are registered with the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA).

The FDA said medical devices were very essential components of the health care system, hence, the need for health authorities to insist on using only the FDA approved medical devices and drugs.

Mrs Akua Amartey, the Acting Deputy Chief Executive (DCE) in charge of Medical Devices, Cosmetics and Household Chemicals Division of the FDA, gave the advice in Wa during a stakeholders’ training on the “Regulation of Medical Devices in Ghana”.

She said if health authorities insisted on using only FDA registered devices and drugs, it would be aided to monitor the safety and quality of the devices and drugs and other products on the market.

Explaining what necessitated the training, Mrs Amartey said the FDA was mandated by the Public Health Act: Act 851 to regulate the safety and quality of all products on the Ghanaian market including medical devices; a component, she acknowledged, most people did not know.

The Deputy Chief Executive Officer explained that the training was meant to let stakeholders understand the regulatory processes and pay attention to them to ensure that they had the right quality of medical devices to work with.

Mrs Amartey advised the public to ensure that before they used any medical device they checked for details of the product such as the manufacturer’s name, date of manufacturing and expiry, the batch and FDA numbers as well as the style of packaging.

She urged health authorities and the public to report suppliers who supplied medical devices and other products to health facilities or to the market that were not registered with the FDA for immediate action to be taken against that supplier.

Mr Joseph Bennie, Head, Medical Devices Department of the FDA, cautioned media houses against advertising drugs that were not certified by the authority.

He said it was wrong to say all the sweet words about a product that had not been registered by the authority to lure people into patronising that product, saying; “very soon the department would start prosecuting media houses that were found culpable of the regulation”.

Mr Bennie appealed to media houses to look out for the FDA seal on adverts and also cross- check with the authority to establish the legality of adverts before airing or publishing them to avoid sanctions.