Foundation educates communities on health charter
The Young and Lonely Foundation (YLF) with support from the Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR) has implemented a Star Ghana-funded project to educate communities on the Maternal Health Rights Charter and the Ombudsman Complaints Desk in the Agona East District in the Central Region.
Advertisement
Under the charter, patients have the right to quality basic health care irrespective of their geographical location. Every patient is also entitled to full information on his or her condition, the alternative treatments and also has the right to consent or decline to participate in a proposed research study involving him or her after explanation has been given.
The project involves a series of activities such as community durbars and radio talk shows in five communities. The beneficiary communities are Agona Nsaba, Duakwa, Asafo, Mensakrom and Kwansakrom.
Rights and responsibilities
The residents were educated on their rights and responsibilities regarding visits to any health facility, as well as the Ombudsman Complaints Desk.
At the various durbars, the Director of YLF, Mr Gilbert Germain, said the target of the Millennium Development Goal 5, which aimed at reducing maternal deaths by 2015, could be achieved if pregnant women were provided the best of healthcare services.
He urged pregnant women to take their health issues seriously and report any complaint to the YLF Ombudsman for onward submission to the District Health Management Team (DHMT) for redress.
The Project Manager of YLF, Mr Philip Doe, expressed concern over the attitude of some pregnant women, who were reluctant to seek ante-natal and post-natal care.
He advised them to remain active subscribers of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and attend ante-natal clinic regularly because it was the best way to safe delivery and safe motherhood.
Other Trending Stories
He enlightened the people on the patient rights charter and appealed to them not to hesitate to report bad treatments that might be meted out to them when they visited any health facility.
Community interface meeting
In a related development, the YLF and ARHR have held an interface meeting to deliberate on findings on a maternal health survey conducted in Agona Duotu and Seth Okai communities, both in the Agona East District.
The indicators for the survey were based on respect shown to clients by health workers, promptness of services, affordability of services, effectiveness of health care, as well as affordability of drugs.
The objective of the meeting, which was attended by officials from the NHIS, social welfare, district assembly and representatives from both communities, was to present the findings to the stakeholders and to enable the health personnel to respond to the concerns raised by the communities during the survey.
During the survey, it came to light that pregnant women from both communities preferred the use of local herbs and other unapproved family planning methods, and patronised the services of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) due to the treatment they received from some health personnel when they visited the health facility.
Plight of pregnant women
They urged the NGOs to continue to speak about the plight of pregnant women to help reduce maternal deaths in the district and the nation at large.
The Agona East District Director of the Ghana Health Service, Mrs Nancy Ekyem, said unlike developed countries that record low maternal deaths, developing countries such as Ghana faced serious challenges concerning maternal deaths.
She assured the participants that she would ensure that health personnel at the various health facilities provided the best of health care to patients who visited the facility.
She urged the participants to make good use of the suggestion box at the various health facilities to help improve health care as, well as help weed out the bad nuts from the health profession.