This selleck chemical is critical as overweight and obesity prevalence rises sharply in tandem with the risk of non-communicable diseases.9,12,18 Another important issue that demands attention is the increasing abuse of the dietetics profession by charlatans posing as dietitians and diet counselors. The Ghana Health Service, in partnership

with the Ghana Dietetic Association as well as the newly created Allied Health Task Force needs to design and enforce regulatory mechanisms for ensuring appropriate professional conduct and practice. The development of a code of ethics by the Dietetic Association is a good first step, in addition to registration of dietitians by the Allied Health Task Force. Adequate public awareness will be necessary to ensure that both the public and practitioners are knowledgeable about how to determine who is a qualified practitioner or otherwise. In the study by Calabro et al, most of the African countries south of the Sahara (exception South Africa and Botswana) either did not have a code of ethics or did not know about its existence.17 Also, many (40%) did not have requirement for practice credentials. Addressing the

issues about credibility will help address some of the challenges dietitians encounter relating to poor perception of their status as professionals, and suboptimal remuneration. Conclusion and Recommendations Dietetic practice in Ghana has evolved from an era of low technical competence to a current state of having more professionally qualified dietitians. However, these professionally qualified dietitians MLN8237 chemical structure reside mainly in Accra. Bold steps are needed to hire more dietitians

into all regional hospitals as a first step to expanding dietetics care in Ghana. While that is being done, there is also the need to address practice and professional challenges of the profession and for dietitians. Acknowledgement We wish to acknowledge the help and information provided by all the practicing and retired dietitians towards the preparation of this article. We are also grateful to the faculty at the listed universities for providing also enrolment and graduation information: University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the University of Health and Allied Sciences.
The 118 pelvic organ prolapse cases constituted (2.68%) of the 4403 gynaecological out-patient cases seen during the two year study period. The mean age and standard deviation was (45.9± 15.1) and the modal age group was 30–39 years with 32 (27.1%) of cases. There were 112 (94.9%) cases of uterine prolapse, 95 (80.5%) had cystocele, 16 (13.5%) patients had rectoceles and 3 (2.5%) had enterocele. Their main occupations were trading 66 (55.9%) and farming 44 (37.3%), seventy (62.5%) of the patients with uterine prolapse were premenopausal while (10) 14.