Tema Metropolitan Assembly to improve health services
Deaths arising from maternal births have witnessed a sharp increase in the Tema metropolis lately. For the first quarter of 2015 alone, the city recorded 16 deaths from patients on referral from Ashaiman, Kpone Katamanso and other places.
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As a result of the unfortunate happenings, the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) is providing community-based health planning
services (CHPS) compounds in several places in the city as a means of addressing the basic health needs of the people. It is expected that the CHPS compounds will help reduce the current high rate of maternal and infant mortality, provide and promote child welfare services, facilitate antenatal and post-natal care services and promote health education and counselling services.
“We want to speedily provide the CHPS compounds so that pregnant women and children can receive speedy medical attention,” said the Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Isaac Ashai Odamtten, who made the disclosure in an interview with the Daily Graphic following a sod-cutting event for the construction of a CHPS compound at Ayigbe town, a community in the DadeAgbo Electoral Area, in Tema Manhean.
The project
The project, which is estimated at a cost of GH¢101,000, will comprise a two-bedroom self-contained staff house, an Outpatient Department (OPD), a patient ward and office, a storage room and a kitchenette.
Mr Odamtten said the inception of the facility was timely since Ghana was a signatory to the Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction in Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMA), which stipulates that no women should die in the process of giving birth.
He said the assembly was committed to the CARMA project and hinted that the assembly would, from now to next year, construct 16 more CHPS compounds that would be spread across all the 32 electoral areas in the metropolis.
The Tema Metropolitan Director of Health Services, Dr John Yabani, said CHPS compounds were established to improve access to health care and shortened the distance patients had to travel from their communities to the nearest big hospital.
He said in view of the high cost of medical care, the Ghana Health Service saw prevention as the best measure to reduce and prevent diseases.
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He gave an assurance that nurses were ready and available to work with the community when the project was completed.
Collaboration
The Paramount Chief of Tema, Nii Adjei Krakue, called on residents to ensure that the project was completed on schedule and was successful. He further urged residents, particularly fishermen, to desist from littering and dumping refuse indiscriminately at the seashore.
The Head of the Ewe Community in Tema Manhean, Togbe Datsomor II, commended the government for extending healthcare services to the area to bring about improvement in the well-being of the people.
Writer’s email: Benjamin.glover@graphic.com.gh