Director of the Medical and Scientific Research Center of the University of Ghana Medical Center, Professor George Boateng Kyei appealed to stakeholders and the public to contribute financially in order to set up a clinical trials unit.
He was speaking at the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC)’s 5th anniversary celebrations on 12th July, 2023. The event was held at the Medical Scientific Research Center Auditorium under the theme “UGMC, Five Years of Working Towards the Provision of World- Class Patient Care, Training and Research.”
The event also involved the unveiling of the logo for the anniversary, which was performed by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UGMC, Dr. Darius Osei, the Chairman of the event, Professor Solomon Fiifi Acquah and the CEO of Special Ice Company, Dr. Ernest Ofori Sarpong.
Professor Kyei elaborated on the need for a clinical trials unit as he recounted the challenges that the center had been facing with the absence of the unit. According to him, creating the unit will enable the center to provide better health care services and conduct clinical trials.
“When we get this laboratory done, it will also help us to prevent the situation where you go to the clinic, they take your sample and they say that the samples has gone to South Africa. It comes back in two weeks and it’s not useful to the doctor anymore. So we need to be able to do these things in Ghana. If we don’t do it, nobody is going to do it for us.”
Professor Kyei also revealed that a huge space had been allocated in the UGMC clinical building for the clinical trials laboratory; however, it needs to be set up to meet international standards in its running.
“We have designated a huge space in our clinical building for the clinical trials laboratory….the part for UGMC to do is to prepare the place to international standard and that is not trivial because we need to be able to do all the preparation of the space so that when they bring the machines, immediately we will be certified by international standards.”
Representatives of the IT consortium for changoapp.com, a money exchange platform announced a collaboration with UGMC to enable the ordinary person donate and contribute to University of Ghana Medical Centre’s mission.
“We also feel that the ordinary person who may have GHC 5, GHC 10, to support the cause we need to give them the platform to contribute their quota so we set up a platform portal for UGMC, changoapp.com.”
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Story by | Henrietta Owusua | univers.ug.edu.gh
