The World Health Organization (WHO) says health care is fundamentally changing around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic and called for a rethink of the traditional ways of healthcare delivery.
The pandemic, according to WHO, has heralded the reimagining of healthcare delivery models from siloed and static-into new models that can do a better job of anticipating people’s healthcare needs.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, in a welcoming video message at a three day workshop for senior health managers at Aqua Safari Resort in Ada said the four-month programme aimed to provide participants with a dynamic and valuable learning experience.
“Whether you are a unit lead, senior manager, division director, Agency CEO, your enrollment in this programme recognizes your unique expertise and contributions towards enhancing teamwork, accountability, and innovation.
It is for that reason that we have invested in this transformative programme to give you an opportunity to deepen your management and leadership skills, to share strategies, challenges and resources with each other, and to think creatively and innovatively when facilitating initiatives with governments and other partners.
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I am confident that a strong learning community provides the foundations for successful operations. Therefore, our plan is to continue educational activities for people involved in health management to help them to stay competitive and have an advantage in a demanding and quickly evolving environment.” She said
Dr Francis Kasolo, the WHO country representative for Ghana, told the media that the senior health managers were been trained to build their leadership skills, hoping that the style of leadership that they would take along their various health workers under their supervision to ensure that Ghana delivered Universal health coverage goals.
According to him, Ghana was one of the countries which had a road map for achieving the universal health coverage and ” for this to take place, the WHO need to have leadership that have the skills and up to speed.”
He said, “We know that the fundings that we have may not necessarily be enough but we have to use innovation in delivering some of the health interventions. The other thing we are training them on is the issue of mentorship so they will be able to mentor their junior staff to develop their capacities to feed into driving a universal health coverage agenda.” He said
Mr. Masao Patrick Kindiano, one of the facilitators, told the Ghana News Agency that after the training, the senior health managers were expected to be leaders who can transform the health sector.
He said a healthy nation is a nation which could produce economically and “If you have a nation where the health sector is not up to power, it means you have unhealthy people who can not live up to the level required.
So we are hoping that they can transform the health sector in such a way that it can contribute to having a healthy Ghana.”
Alhaji Asei Mahama Seini, a Deputy Minister of Health, said, “Ministry of Health is responsible for the health of everybody living in Ghana and we are also aware that health issues are now multifaceted and dynamic so a training programme like this by WHO, will sharpen our professionals in terms of leadership skill development so that they can execute proper instructions to bring about the well-being of Ghanaians, monitor, see through effective implementation of all other policies even as we are being threatened by COVID-19, ” he said.
Mr. Mahama, who was also a participant, noted that the impact of the training would allow teamwork among them as senior health managers and charge colleague participants to implement whatever training they had to bring about improvement in the health sector.
Background
According to WHO, studies have shown that transformational leadership positively affects employees’ individual creativity and work-related attitudes which as a practice has also been found to positively influence leadership efficiency and produce positive outcomes including extra effort, effectiveness and satisfaction.
WHO, has embarked on the journey of transformation in 2015 and defined the WHO Africa Health Transformation Programme which served as the strategic framework that would guide WHO’s contribution to the sustainable development platform in Africa.
It also aimed to strengthen the capacity of WHO in the African Region to better respond to Member States’ needs and deliver country level impact.
The 2021 global transformation evaluation revealed that more staff in the WHO African Region feel valued, heard and more accountable for results.
A notable increase was observed in the percentage of staff who feel they are motivated from 43% in 2017 to 54%.
The WHO African Region showed the most promising results across all the WHO regions in cultural change with initiatives such as the WHO values charter, Change Agents’ Network and Pathways to Leadership Program proving to be very promising efforts at inculcating new cultural values and norms.
