‘Lets intensify adolescent sexual health education’
Two medical experts have stressed the need for an expanded education and access to information on reproductive and sexual health for adolescents across the country.
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A Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Ridge Hospital, Dr Maura Ntow, and a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Dr Emmanuel Ameh, made the remarks in separate lectures at the maiden public forum and awards ceremony organised by the Greater Accra Chapter of the Paediatric Society of Ghana in Accra last Friday.
It was on the theme: “Reproductive Health in Adolescents and Emotional and Relationship Changes in Adolescents.”
They said adolescents were being given less needed attention and were being left to develop without the much-needed guidance and support. That, according to them, had led to a good number of adolescents ignorantly engaging in sexual acts that culminated in teenage pregnancies and unsafe abortions that prematurely ended their lives.
Parents’ role
They also maintained that instead of parents taking the lead role in giving the adolescents primary education on reproductive health, they tended to leave that duty to teachers, warning that since adolescence constituted a major link between childhood and adulthood, the country’s human resource stood the risk of low productivity if immediate steps were not taken to place the reproductive health of adolescents on the priority list of the national agenda.
According to Dr Ameh, research had established that adolescents wanted their parents to talk to them on reproductive health rather than having anyone else do that.
Research, he said, had also revealed that when parents engaged their adolescent children on early reproductive and sexual health, they became less disposed to early sexual activities.
Dr Ntow for his part, said the transition from adolescence to adulthood involved a lot of psychological and emotional changes leading to oversensitivity on the part of adolescents as a result of hormonal fluctuations.
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She said at that point, the brain of the adolescent went through changes that led to more mature behaviour which required the supply of needed care, education and information to ensure that the development of the brain was conditioned along the productive lines.
GES’s curricula
For his part, Dr Koma Jehu Appiah, the Country Director for IPAS, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) committed to advancing the reproductive rights of women and sponsors of the event, stressed the need for the Ghana Education Service (GES) to review its curricula to address the lack of information needs for adolescents on reproductive and sexual health.
He also called on the Ghana Health Service (GES) to create more adolescent-friendly reproductive and social health centres.
A tutor and guidance and counselling co-ordinator at the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, Legon, Mrs Rita Tackie-Manieson, said from experience, it had become evident that adolescents were battling their sexuality and that there was the need for periodic grooming of parents on how to handle their adolescent children.
Five persons were rewarded for their outstanding contribution to paediatric services in the country. They were Dr Albert G. Boonhe, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, Professors Lorna Awo Renner and Jennifer Welbeck, as well as Matron Patience Abbey, who were each given the Gold Star awards, and Dr Frank Owusu Sekyere who received a certificate of recognition.
Writer’s email: victor.kwawukume@graphic.com.gh