One Hundred and Forty (140) primary healthcare workers and tutors from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST) Affiliated Health Training Institutions have benefitted from training in health entrepreneurship. The 2-weeks training workshop dubbed ‘Train the Trainer’ held simultaneously in 3 regional capitals including Sunyani, Tamale, and Takoradi was organised by the Mastercard Foundation Higher Education Health Collaborative.
The training, spearheaded by the Health Entrepreneurship Pillar of the Collaborative sought to empower Primary Healthcare (PHC) workers and Tutors of Nursing and Midwifery Institutions to nurture potential entrepreneurs to build resilient health ventures in Ghana. The primary objective of the Higher Education Collaborative in Health is to build and strengthen the capacity of health care students and professionals to meet the growing demand for primary healthcare in Ghana.
According to the Principal Investigator of the Mastercard Foundation Higher Education Health Collaborative, Professor Ellis Owusu-Dabo, the training will address shortfalls in the health entrepreneurship sector in addition to stimulating innovation and creativity in the sector. "The training is a combination of health collaborative social skills and health enterprise development modules tailored to bridge the current gaps in health entrepreneurship," he said.
The Health Entrepreneurship Pillar Lead, Professor Wilberforce Owusu-Ansah highlighted the user-friendly and learner-centred curriculum designed to help health graduates and workers acquire the needed start-up skills and enhance their health business. He added that special emphasis is placed on supporting youth and women entrepreneurs in developing high-growth potential and scalable health businesses. The Deputy Director of Nursing Services at Kwadaso Municipal Health Directorate, Ms. Vivian Hickson Asirifi, expressed her optimism about the programme, stating, "I hope to grasp as much knowledge as possible in health entrepreneurship and connect with other staff members to benefit from this programme."
The primary healthcare participants were comprised of representatives from District Hospitals, Health Centres, and Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compounds. The participants were empowered to provide the needed entrepreneurship training to staff at the various sub-district health facilities and CHPS compounds to boost entrepreneurial mindset, creativity, and health business start-up, among others. Similarly, the Nursing and Midwifery training tutors are expected to offer bespoke entrepreneurship training to their students, with supervision from the staff of the KNUST- Mastercard Foundation Higher Education Health Collaborative. The participants were taught courses such as ‘Enterprise Development and Youth Employment, and Health Entrepreneurial Risk,’ among others.
Participants expressed their expectations of acquiring essential entrepreneurial knowledge to share with their peers. Mr. Daniel Agyei Marfo of St Dominic Clinic hopes that the training will enable him to train individuals to become successful health entrepreneurs to curb the brain drain menace. Also, Mr. Michael Kumi Badu, Administrator of Fatima Health Centre, expressed his expectations, stating, "I'm expecting this training will broaden our knowledge on where we should invest so that it benefits the facility and the people." Anabia Ralph-Martin of Pope Francis Health Centre added, "I want to have more knowledge so that I can help my staff to build themselves to become health entrepreneurs."
Under the Health Entrepreneurship Pillar, a total of Three Hundred and Fifty-Five (355) trainers from Seventy-Seven (77) KNUST-Affiliated Ministry of Health Training Institutions, as well as Five Hundred and Sixty (560) public-private Primary Healthcare workers, were trained with the potential give-back reach of over Twenty-Four Thousand (24,000) young people during the first phase of the programme.
