SHORTAGE of professional health workers at the various hospitals and health centres in the Eastern Region is militating against quality health care in the region, the Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Erasmus Agongo, has stated.
The challenge, he said, had over the years undermined efforts being made to reduce infant and maternal mortality under the Millennium Development Goals as well as the various communicable and non-communicable diseases in the area.
“The number of medical assistants decreased in the region from 53 in 2007 to 46 in 2008, while that of nurse anaesthetists decreased from 22 in 2007 to 19 in 2008”, Dr Agongo stated.
He said this at this year’s Eastern Regional annual performance review conference at Koforidua.
“All the 12 doctors who were posted to the region in 2008 failed to turn up, a drawback that has made it difficult to provide full range of services in some hospitals and health centres”, he noted.
The four-day event dubbed“Strengthening Maternal and Child Health Through Partnership and Quality Care”, is being attended by more than 200 health managers from 21 districts and hospitals in the region. Also, in attendance were development partners, non-governmental organisations and members of the Eastern Regional Health Committee.
The regional health director stated that the health sector in the region was facing numerous challenges that had militated against the achievement of some of the set goals, mostly reduction of infant and maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS and other communicable and non communicable diseases.
Dr Agongo stated that the region recorded 118 and 146 maternal deaths in 2006 and 2007, respectively while such cases reduced to 98 in 2008, an achievement he described as “significant but unacceptable”.
Quoting reports of the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, he said the region also recorded 93 under-five deaths per 1,000 live births in 1993, while such cases increased to 98 per 1,000 births in 1998.
Dr Agongo also mentioned inadequate budgetary allocation to the health sector as another major problem facing effective and efficient health care in the region, adding “the unpredictable release of government funds is also seriously compromising the execution of many health programmes”.
On the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), he stated that delays associated with the reimbursements to the hospitals and health centres by the district health insurance schemes (DHIS) were crippling most of the health facilities.
According to him, as of December, last year, the various DHIS in the region were indebted to health institutions to the tune of GH¢7 million.
“Unless something is done urgently about this challenge, some of the health facilities will not be able to continue providing services to subscribers of the scheme”, Dr Agongo added.
The regional health director further identified inadequate means of transport as another major hurdle facing most district health management teams and hospitals, as they did not have the means of transportation to carry out supervision and outreach services to remote areas.
With regard to infrastructure, he noted that most of the health centres must expand their facilities to be able to cope with the increasing number of patients, due to the NHIS.
Dr Agongo also identified acute accommodation problems facing nurses as one of the major challenges facing the health sector in the region.
The regional health director, therefore, appealed to the government and other stakeholders to help address these problems to facilitate the provision of better health care for the people.
The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, pledged his commitment to work closely with health personnel in the region to address the various challenges towards the smooth implementation of healthcare delivery in the region.
He also appealed to district assemblies to provide the necessary support for the health institutions in their respective areas to enable the country achieve the set targets under the MDG by 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment