Ada West lacks basic health equipment, supplies
The lack of basic health equipment and supplies is impeding the smooth implementation of Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (EmONC) in the Ada West District in the Greater Accra Region.
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Inadequate midwives and community health nurses is also hampering the delivery of maternal and neonatal care in the district.
A visit to the Sege Health Centre revealed that basic supplies such as bag and musk for newborn resuscitation, chlorhexidine for cord care, elbow gloves, Vitamin K1 injection and chloramphenicol or tetracycline eye drops, were not available to facilitate effective healthcare delivery for the newborn.
The visit was to confirm a rapid assessment needs conducted by the Ghana Health Service to identify gaps in the provision of maternal, newborn and emergency care in some selected deprived health facilities in the country.
In 2011, the assessment of emergency obstetric and newborn care was published by the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service. The survey was undertaken in 2010 in 1,268 facilities across all the 10 regions of Ghana.
It provided a complete picture of the capacity of Ghana’s current health system to deliver quality basic and comprehensive EmONC services.
A set of nine life saving services, known as “signal functions,” were used to assess facilities in terms of their EmONC capacity.
Assessment results
The assessment revealed, among other findings, that only 58 per cent of births were attended to by skilled birth attendants of which 21 per cent took place in EmONC facilities; nine per cent of the facilities had no source of electricity with eight per cent with no access to water.
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In addition, the study assessed women’s access to these services and whether the distribution of facilities in Ghana was equitable.
A rapid assessment needs was undertaken from December 2015 to January 2016 as part of a one-year project by a consortium made up of parliament, civil society organisations (CSOs), the ministries of Finance and Health, Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the media.
The consortium was formed after a training workshop organised in Harare, Zimbabwe, by the Harmonisation for Health in Africa, under the auspices of the World Health Organisation, Africa Regional Office.
In Ghana, the consortium was made up of the Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights, SEND-Ghana, GHS, Ministry of Finance and the media.
Aim of project
The aim of the project was to assess Ghana’s preparedness in enhancing maternal and newborn care.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Dr Jacqueline Sfarylani, the Ada West District Director of Health Services, said the district had a challenge of human resource, especially, midwives and community health nurses.
She said the district, with a population of 71,000, recorded low-skilled delivery of 20 per cent in 2015, adding that most pregnant women in the district patronised the Bartor and Faith Kope hospitals in the Ada East District.
“The high presence of traditional birth attendants (TBAs) is also a major challenge for us due to the cultural belief of the people that the old women do have a third eye seeing the future of their pregnancies,” she said.
Dr Sfarylani said the District Health Directorate was holding meetings with the TBAs to collaborate with them to enable them to refer complicated cases to the health facilities as well as train them to handle deliveries safely.
The district, made up of Sege, Anyamam and Bornikope had had only seven midwives serving the district. Sege, which is the largest sub-district, has three midwives with only one baby’s cot serving the facility.
Utility supply
The health facilities enjoyed electricity from the national grid but the main source of water to the facilities had not been connected to all the wards.
Mrs Gladys Brew, the Deputy Director in charge of Family Health of GHS, expressed regret that basic medical supplies were lacking in some health facilities. — GNA
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