Veterinary Services, a directorate under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), is on the verge of collapse, as past governments have failed to recruit professionals who were trained to contribute their expertise toward the socio-economic development of Ghana.
Currently, only 54 veterinary professionals instead of the nationwide requirement of 210 officers are providing services in all the 10 regions of Ghana, with the Central Region lagging behind with only one professional instead of the expected 16 professionals, according to an official document.
The situation makes the efforts of the directorate to live up to expectation extremely difficult, as it is unable to effectively and efficiently control illegal acts at Ghana’s borders, particularly against the importation of diseased animals into the country.
Two populous regions in the country, Greater Accra and Ashanti, have veterinary staff strengths of seven and five instead of the required 27 and 16 respectively, while Eastern Region has three professionals instead of 16, with the Northern Region having seven instead of 32 officers.
While the Western Region has three veterinary professionals in lieu of 16, the Brong-Ahafo Region tops it with six instead of 23. The Upper West and East Regions have two professionals each in lieu of 14, with the Volta Region having four in lieu of the required 15 professionally-trained staff.
The remaining 15 veterinary professionals of the directorate work with other establishments, with 11 at the directorate’s head office, two at the wildlife and one at the fish health. These need 24 professionals to be effective and efficient.
However, checks by DAILY GUIDE reveal that about 50 veterinary professionals trained at the Kwame University of Science and Technology (KNUSTI) and the University of Ghana, Legon, have been sitting at home since 2014, waiting to be employed.
It is feared that the outbreak of any of the zoonotic diseases like bird flu, rabies, anthrax and Ebola in the country will put Ghanaians at health risk, considering the poor human resource situation of the Veterinary Service Directorate under the Agric Ministry.
Source: Daily Guide
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In fact is high time we rise up and register our displeasure by allowing anthrax to strike people, I think with this government will pay attention to the veterinary services if not is too disgusting
If the government is not ready to support veterinary service and other related veterinary education programmes in the country , then He can be assured if high expenditure on zonotic diseases sooner . Veterinary schools and it related programmes must be recognized and it's a must and not may!
Is very sad hmmm!I don't know how Ghana government see veterinary services we are not well recognized at all even in the statement made by the minister about agric, he made mention of all the agric agricultural colleges but never mentioned ***barred word*** health and production college why? Aren't we part of agric? If we aren't part then tell we veterinary our status
mr aduboat, i disagree with you on the use of the words'so called surgeons'in your submission. just to remind you, vet surgeons undergo 6 years of vet education whiles a para vet goes through 2-3 years of education. para vets function to complement and support the activities of the vet surgeons just as nurses complement the activites of the medical officer at our hospitals. the current insufficiency of vet surgeons in the country is what has led to some districts being placed under the supervison of para vets but that is not to say that the para vet is superior or better than the vet surgeon. at the end of the day we function together to enable the vet services contribute to both ***barred word*** and human health in the country. And as to whether the vet surgeons are the frontliners or not, we should rather focus our energies on advocating for adequate resources for the vet department as well as employment of the needed human resources which includes both vet surgeons and para vets....and stop the petty bickering about who is more important. thats just by the way...... veterinary services in developed countries are making a lot of difference in contributing to the economies as well as the ***barred word*** and human health of these countries..otherwise we would not be importing chicken and other ***barred word*** products from these countries....... coming back home....lets just imagine we are abandoning vet services in GHANA....these are some of the consequences.....we will loose all our livestock, poultry and other meat animals to diseases, where then will we be getting our protein supply from...or we want to end up helping to build other economies by importing their ***barred word*** proteins whiles we loose in foreign exchange.....there would be no rabies vaccinations and people would be left at the mercy of rabied dogs with its associated deaths......slaughtered animals to be eaten by people would not be inspected and there would be soo much food poisonings and deaths from tuberculosis, anthrax, rabies, just to mention a few....people would end up contracting diseases from their pets, pregnant women would end up aborting babies, men would become sterile because of diseases like toxoplasmosis and brucellosis from their pets........all kinds of animals with diseases and ***barred word*** products would end up being dumped in Ghana due to importation and we would end up with endless bird flu, salmonellosis etc......and the dangers go on and on and on......and interestingly enough, it is also worthy to note that the only money generating instruments at the ministry of agric are the vet services and the plant inspection services, with the vet services being the highest income generating department in the ministry of Agric. we have to have a rethink as a nation about our priorities...God help Ghana.
The para professionals should just ***barred word*** if they are not going to support their counterparts,,, abaa booshit nso no no...mtchhheeeewwwww
It saddens my heart when you put up your best but it's never appreciated. Check ministry of health, when doctors are mentioned, nurses and other para professionals also follow suit. Unlike vet. Services, it is always believed that only the so called surgeons are the frontlines but I want to tell all Ghanaians that it is a myth. If these vet para professionals were not there it will be a different story all together. So please when the nation is addressing the plight of vets it should be all inclusive but not the other way round.thanx
it's a pity when you talk of veterinary services history has it that the only Veterinary college in Ghana and the then times in West Africa is located in pong Tamale that train students each year but a little attention is paid to this college not to even talk of employing it products so we have the right to work after training but it is not so in our case our efforts are not recognized and it's high time they recognize it because Ghana is going to be a hell to live if there are outbreaks without personnel to combat them
It is sad when look at veterinary services in Ghana. Am a student of veterinary medicine in the university of Ghana. The great knowledge and the depth of things we study should turn the livestock production and ***barred word*** health in general around in this country. But what do we see, it seems there is a deliberate attempt to sideline these knowledge. I don't want to believe so but how professionals and workers in this sector are just neglected suggest so. Bring them on board and let's turn our economy around
The situation of veterinary services is a sad one. This is because Ghana hasn't realized the impact of improving veterinary services on her development. The story up here is just a tip of the iceberg. Veterinary paraprofessionas (Vet. Technicians) have been neglected in this country. They graduate from school with no assurance of employment. The few that get employed are poorly remunerated because the government has failed to put them on the single spine salary structure. The first batch (which I am part) of veterinary doctors trained in Ghana (from UG and KNUST) have not been paid their housemanship allowances since 2015. What a catastrophe! The second batch is facing the same demise. This discourages people who intend to become vets especially students. The third batch will be out later this year and if nothing drastic is done, the same will happen. Human health is at risk and livestock production is poor in Ghana. Ghana imports meat and meat products, eggs etc even though we have the capacity to be self-sufficient. The safety and quality of ***barred word***-sources foods is a big issue. What Ghana fails to see is that, public health is greatly dependent on strong veterinary services. The ministry of Agric is biased towards crop production which is understandable but needs to be looked at. Ghana spent months to control Avian Influenza outbreaks last year because the very few bets were not supported well enough with logistics. Ghana needs to strengthen her veterinary services in order to be ready for any event of disease outbreaks. People die out rabies every year because vaccination coverage for our canine (eg. Dogs) and feline (eg. Cat) populations is poor. Ghana needs a strong framework for her veterinary services to enhance public health, livestock production and research. God help us all!
LOOK AT VETERINARY SERVICES HOLISTICALLY!!! Yes Vet services is Collapsing! Only one part of the story is told to Ghanaians. The institution is made up of the Veterinarians and the Veterinary Para Professionals who are front liners and have worked tirelessly all these years to keep the department alive. However, their effort has never been recognized by Veterinary Authority, Ministry of Food and Agic. as well as the nation as a whole. This has gone to the extent that even when the Veterinary Para Professionals embarked on a nationwide industrial action in demand of Interim Market Premium, nobody either from the state or management to listen to the group.There are several hundreds of trained Veterinary Para Professionals who are also not employed, so no one should let it look only the trained Veterinarians are unemployed.