Former President John Dramani Mahama has been explaining the rationale behind a decision the National Democratic Congress government took to include some Muslim women in a list of Ghanaian students who were supposed to be trained as doctors in Cuba.
The doctors were sent to Cuba during the NDC government under the late Prof. John Evans Atta Mills in 2012 as part of a special arrangement between Ghana and Cuba.
This included selected girls from deprived communities, who were to receive training in the area of Gynaecology.
The doctors returned to the country over the weekend after over six years of training in Cuba.
Speaking at the Al Sunna Eid Prayers as part of the of Eid ul Adha celebration in Accra, the former President said the women doctors were deliberately sent to specifically cater for the needs of women when they return to their communities.
“About six years ago, we got scholarships to send some children to Cuba to go and train as doctors. There was something significant that we did when we got the scholarship. We decided to deliberately source girls from the Muslim communities in order that we could go and train them as doctors especially in the area of Gynaecology…So we deliberately looked for some Muslim girls and included them in this batch of students who went to Cuba. We had to strategically place them so that our mothers from the Muslim community and others who want to consult for their reproductive health can have our sisters who are qualified as doctors to be able to look after them.”