HEALTH AUTHORITIES PRAISED FOR ACHIEVING ZERO MATERNAL DEATHS 08th March, 2019
Authorities of the Ghana Health
Service in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region as well as Management of
the Bongo District Hospital, have received huge praises from the Upper East
Regional Minister for achieving a record of zero maternal deaths from 2018 to
date. This coincides with the International Women’s Day celebration, a day set
aside globally to celebrate and support women’s rights.
The Regional Minister, Hon. Paulina
Patience Abayage heaped the praises on the authorities when she addressed a
day’s seminar on “zero maternal death” organised by the Bongo District Health
Directorate under the theme:- Sustaining
Zero Maternal Deaths In Bongo – The Role Of Stakeholders. She also
acknowledged the efforts of the District Assembly by way of construction and
renovation of CHPS facilities for health service delivery while commending the
traditional leadership in the area and community members for their individual
support to the health authorities in achieving this enviable feat.
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| Upper East R.M, Hon. Paulina P. Abayage takes the floor to address the seminar |
Hon. Abayage noted that in the
modern and changing times, quality health care delivery has become a shared
responsibility and that all stakeholders ought to continue doing their bit to
ensure that no community or settlement was left out in the access to affordable
and quality health services. She stated that government had travelled a long
road in its efforts to continually reduce maternal deaths adding that, though
huge successes had been chalked, there had also been few challenges. She
revealed for instance that, the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey indicated
that more women were attending hospital for antenatal services within their
first trimester than in times past. The survey also revealed that, delivery in
health services rose from 54 percent in 2007 to 79 percent in 2017.
The Regional Minister however
observed that in spite of the progress made, it must be acknowledged that the
scale up of maternal health services particularly, at the district level as
well as investment in the CHPS concept of health delivery and other related
primary health care infrastructure has not been moving as expected. She noted
further that, access to critical health services has also been impeded sometimes
in the communities due to financial constraints in some families, long
distances between households and health facilities, low literacy rates amongst
women and old traditional norms that limit women from attending health
facilities until their husbands were consulted first. Meanwhile, the referral
system in the health service, also leaves much to be desired as there was often
lack of proper and effective coordination between facilities.
According to her, government had restrategised
the National Health Insurance Scheme with the introduction of the mobile
renewal of membership cards to speed-up the process and also save time for
clients to attend to other vital engagements such as business. Additionally,
proper checks and balances including forensic auditing of claims submitted by
service providers have been instituted to weed out corruption in the health
delivery system. She said government was also increasing the numbers and
coverage of Community-based Health Planning Services [CHPS] facilities across
the country while increasing the numbers of trained critical health man power
such as midwives. There is also the continuous implementation of the free
maternal health care policy and all of these are geared at drastically,
reducing the occurrence of maternal deaths if not completely eradicating the
phenomenon.
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| A Section of the participants |
Madam Abayage however, commended
the health authorities for the roll out and implementation of the Mother and
Baby Friendly Health Initiative which works to create the necessary structures
and systems to meet the health needs of pregnant women, lactating mothers and
their new-borns. She was also thankful to development partners in the health
sector for their tremendous assistance and mentioned JICA, KOICA, Water Aid
Ghana and UNICEF among others as those deserving praise from the government and
people of Ghana.
Upper East Regional Director of
Health Services, Dr. Wilfred Ofosu in his remarks at the seminar proposed the
following as solutions to curbing the menace of maternal deaths in Ghana: the
expansion of access to mother and baby-friendly health facilities, 100 percent
penetration of the National Health Insurance Scheme, increased training and
deployment of midwives, improved transportation in the health sector and use of
telemedicine communication systems among others.
Dr. Ofosu appealed to traditional
authorities to scrap old-fashion customs that prohibit women from obtaining
antenatal and postnatal services as such abstinence was detrimental to both
mother and child. He also hinted of completed discussions to post a third
doctor to the Bongo District Hospital but that accommodation to house the
doctor was an issue and thus called on the Assembly to act on the issue.
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