He said the health sector was in constant flux with technological advancements, rising patient expectations, financial constraints and public health crises such as pandemics.

All these, according to him, presented an opportunity for institutions with “Leaders who can navigate the complexities with vision and resilience” to lead the way and take advantage to design courses that would prepare the students to still be relevant in the job market shortly.

He was speaking at the 16th congregation of the Garden City University College (GCUC), at Kenyase in the Kwabre East District in the Ashanti Region.

Prof. Addai-Mensah said there was a need for a collective rethinking of how institutions of higher learning, especially the private ones offering healthcare-related courses, could prepare their students to meet and manage the evolving challenges in the healthcare landscape of the country and the world.

He explained that globalisation and technological advancements had made it such that people’s expectations of healthcare services were constantly evolving with demands for specialised healthcare and services on a rising trajectory.

“While this may pose some challenges to the existing healthcare systems, it also presents a boundless ground of opportunity especially if the tertiary institutions offering health courses have anticipated these emerging needs and designed training programmes to prepare their students to respond to them,” he said.

He, therefore, called on the institutions in the training of health personnel to embrace innovation and have the ability to anticipate and prepare their students for the challenges of the future.

“Private tertiary institutions, like all institutions of higher learning, must stay grounded in their core mission of the pursuit of knowledge and the development of human resources that provide solutions to the challenges of society,” he urged.

Addressing the graduates, the acting President of the GCUC, Nana K. Owusu Kwarteng, advised them to let the training they received from the university be their guide as they venture into the professional world and to be good ambassadors of GCUC.

He said over the years, it had carved a niche for itself in the training of health personnel in the country and two years ago, introduced the MPhil in Midwifery.

Mr Kwarteng said the university had this year added the MPhil in Nursing and Master of Public Health (MPH) programmes, all geared towards equipping the health personnel in the country with the needed skills to fit into the current job market.

Other programmes available at the university include a Bachelor in Business Administration with options in Accounting, Marketing, Management, Banking and Finance, Human Resource Management and Procurement and Supply Chain Management.