Supreme Court Judge, Justice Jones Mawulorm Dotse has counselled newly trained health care professionals by the University of Health and Allied Sciences to abide by the rules of their professions in providing quality services to the citizenry.

Justice Dotse who is the chairman for the University’s Council said health professionals must take cognisance of their enormous responsibilities to the public and as such act in their interest always.

The Supreme Court Justice was speaking at the second congregation of UHAS at Sokode-Lokoe near Ho on Saturday, where a total of 376 students, who successfully completed their 4-year programmes of study in the 2016/2017 academic year, graduated.

He told the graduands at the ceremony held in the university’s newly constructed Bank of Ghana funded ‘Cedi’ auditorium, that “as ambassadors, do not do anything that will tarnish the image of this university; as health and allied professionals you must be conscious of the immense benefit that the country required from you and you must ensure high ethical standards in line with your professional code of etiquette. The indecent haste with which some health professionals resort to industrial action must not form part of your career.”

Justice Dotse also iterated the resolve of the new Council to build on the strong foundation laid by the previous Council in ensuring the university delivers on its core mandate of training highly skilled professionals for the country’s health care system.

The graduands drawn from the Schools of Public Health, Medicine, Allied Health Sciences, as well as Nursing and Midwifery were presented with Bachelor of Science (Bsc) degree certificates in disciplines such as Dietetics, Midwifery, Nursing, Physician Assistantship, Medical Laboratory Sciences, and Public Health, (with options in Disease Control, Environmental Health, Nutrition , Health Information, Health Promotion, and Nursing.)

The Vice Chancellor of UHAS, Prof. John Owusu Gyapong noted that, the 5-year old university was making tremendous strides in spite of the teething challenges confronting it.

He said staff and student numbers have seen exponential increases since 2012, with the current   population standing at 611 staff and 3,727 students.

According to him, a total of 18 academic programmes are currently being run in six out of the eight of the stipulated Schools, whiles an Institute of Heath Research has been established to focus on multidisciplinary research and provision of extension services in the sector.

He however, bemoaned the inadequate infrastructural situation of the university, stating that, “only one out of eight of our schools has been built [i.e, School of Basic and Biomedical Sciences], thus all our academic facilities are currently in temporary structures which are woefully inadequate. Our students don’t have a single Hall of residence so they have no experience of what a Joint Common Room (JCR) life is like.”

Professor Gyapong therefore made a passionate appeal to government to help tackle the massive infrastructural deficit by providing some basic minimum infrastructure for the university just as it was done for older public universities in the past.

The Volta Regional Minister, Dr. Archibald Letsa said government was well aware of the challenges of the university and steps are being taken to tackle them in order to create a conducive environment for effective academic work.

Awards were later presented to some deserving students, with a graduand in Health Information from the School of Public Health at Hohoe, Amos Sorengnem Ziema, receiving the Over-all best graduating student award.

The founding Vice Chancellor of UHAS, Prof. Fred Binka together with two others, Dr. Christina Amoako-Nuamah, and Dr. Delanyo Yao Dovlo were also conferred honourary Doctorate degrees for their meritorious contributions towards the establishment and growth of the university.