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Mr. Alban Bagbin, the Minister for Health, has appealed to health professional associations and management of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and Teaching Hospitals to take proactive steps to expose and weed out people who parade as health professionals in health facilities. He said removal of these quacks, correction of negative perceptions about the sector and improvement of customer care and client satisfaction would help restore confidence in the nation�s health system. Mr Bagbin was addressing the opening session of the 36th annual conference of the Association of Health Service Administrators (AHSAG) in Wa yesterday. The conference, which had the theme �Towards the achievement of MDGs 4 and 5: the role of Health Services Administrators,� offered the Health Administrators the opportunity to interact and share successes and challenges in their work places and devise common ways of addressing the challenges. It brought together Health Administrators from all over the country and other key partners and collaborators in the management and implementation of health service policies, programmes and projects. Mr. Bagbin said the Ministry for Health was putting in place a number of health and non-health strategies to address the unacceptable high maternal and child mortality in order to attain MDGs four and five. These strategies include improving access to emergency obstetric and neonatal services across the country, collaborating with Municipal and District Assemblies and communities to improve the status of women and free family planning services in all health facilities. He appealed to Health Administrators to re-examine their contribution to the strategies and adopt innovative management approaches to help address gaps in the provision of maternal health for the women, in particularly rural and peri-urban communities. Mr. Bagbin said he had endorsed the recommendation of GHS Council for an upward review of the placement of all graduate entry grades of the non-clinical staff on the single spine salary structure to be at par with those of their clinical colleagues. Alhaji Amidu Suleman, the Upper West Regional Minister, reminded the Health Administrators that resources were scarce as against competing demands and that it was expected of them to make judicious and to prioritise the use of their internally generated funds. While admitting the manpower deficit in the health delivery system, he expressed worry that the Upper West region had only 14 doctors serving a population of over 700,000 out of a required figure of 37 and a short fall of 93 midwives and 51 medical assistants. He appealed to Municipal and District Assemblies in the region to sponsor many more students and practitioners to fill the vacancies after completing their studies. Incentive packages should also be offered to doctors in order to attract them to the deprived districts and retain them there for much longer durations, he said. Mr. Albert Asiedu-Offei, National President of the Association, stated that the absence of some basic life supporting equipment for mothers and children in the health institutions posed a huge threat to the lives of children and mothers. He said the attainment of the MDG Four and Five would partly depend on the availability of essential drugs in the right quantities and at the right prices in the health facilities throughout the country. He expressed concern that there was no Health Service Administrator occupying the professional grade of Chief Health Services Administrator at the Headquarters while the service had grades like Chief Nutritionist, Chief Radiologist and Chief Physiotherapist.