Category: Medical

Tema,- The Tema General Hospital on Thursday marked this year’s breastfeeding week celebration with a float through some principal streets of Tema amidst singing and engaging motorists with messages.

The float started from the premises of the hospital through the main streets of communities ‘11, 10, 6, 4, 8, 9’ and back to the hospital educated and interacted with onlookers and passengers in vehicles.

This year’s celebration is on the theme: “Start Right: Feed Right, From Birth up to two Years and Beyond”.

Ms Joyce Aware, Senior Nutrition Office at the Tema General Hospital, said the float was to create community awareness on the importance of breastfeeding, most especially the need for exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months in a child’s life.

Touching on the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding, she said, initiating breastfeeding immediately after birth, will enable the child to grow healthier as breastmilk naturally contained all the nutrients that the child needed.

Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, she noted provided the child with the right antibodies for adequate protection from infections.

Ms Asare disclosed that there were a lot of malnutrition cases in Tema among children under six months because lactating mothers do not practice exclusive breastfeeding.

She expressed worry at the rate at which lactating mothers stop practicing exclusive breastfeeding after three months’ maternity leave and rather fed their children with other forms of feeding.

She said, “from the history we’ve gathered so far, most of the mothers are not practicing exclusive breastfeeding and this is as a result of them resuming work early and they tend to feed them with other things making them not to grow well.

“There’s a way of continuous breastfeeding up to the first six months so they should contact health workers for assistance to practice the exclusive breastfeeding and if possible continue up to two years,” she added.

The nutrition officer revealed that COVID-19 had affected the rate at which lactating mothers visited weighing centres as breastfeeding talks are routinely done to educate them on what is expected.

Ms Asare urged lactating mothers of children less than six months to continue breastfeeding as breastmilk was needed to boost their immunity.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Kumasi, – The Ashanti Regional Directorate of Veterinary Services has placed a ban on the movement of poultry and poultry products within and from other regions and districts affected by the Avian Influenza (bird flu).

The move is to help curb the spread of the disease in other parts of the region.

Dr Marlon Mensah, Ashanti Regional Veterinary Director told the Ghana News Agency that so far two farms in the Atwima enclave had been hit by the disease in the Ashanti Region.

A total of 2,350 birds died from the disease in the affected farms while Veterinary officers destroyed over 3,200 birds.

Seven (7) bags of poultry feed and 28 crates of egg were also destroyed in the affected farms.

Dr Mensah, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA), that the bird flu disease was first detected on July 29, this year at a farm in the Atwima Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region.

He said the Directorate had intensified its surveillance mechanisms and was assessing the situation on the ground.

“We don’t have any first-hand information, we are only responding to the initial alerts about the disease outbreak”, he stated.

Dr Mensah advised the people in the region to report any unusual deaths of domestic poultry and wild birds to the nearest Veterinary Office for prompt response.

The public should also avoid handling dead birds with bare hands and consume only well-cooked poultry meat and other poultry products.

Dr Mensah urged the public not to panic because the Regional Veterinary Directorate was taking all the necessary steps to contain the outbreak of the disease.

The Atwima enclave, made up of the Atwima Nwabiagya North and South Districts, Atwima Kwanwoma and Atwima Mponua, had the largest concentration of poultry farms in the Ashanti region.

They supply almost all the poultry products in the region and the outbreak of the bird flu disease in the area is a source of worry to many people who depend on the farms for either business or food.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to sensitize the public on the Adolescent, Newborns, Maternal Health and Lead Poisoning project.

Ms Anastasiia Nurzhynska, Communication for Development Specialist, UNICEF, signed on behalf of the Fund while Professor Amin Alhassan, Director-General, GBC, signed for the Corporation.

As part of the agreement, GBC will roll out a six month comprehensive programme from August 2021 to January 2022 on its seven television channels and 18 radios stations across the country to highlight issues on the project for positive attitudes and outcomes.

Mr Kingsley Obeng-Kyere, Project Manager, said many adolescents were exposed to risks such as early pregnancies, gender-based violence, depression and lead poisoning, causing harm and even death through mental health disorders that occurred early in life.

Global research reveals that the leading cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19 is complications from pregnancy and childbirth.

He said communications and sharpened advocacy approach was necessary to shore up gains and stop a further downward trend, adding that the project would help with informed choices, worked on negative sexual and gender norms, myths, stereotypes and misinformation.

Mr Obeng-Kyere said interventions had worked in reducing the challenges faced by these adolescent girls from what it used to be, adding that under nutrition and obesity were receiving the necessary attention.

In Ghana, UNICEF and UNFPA joint programme had shaped positive and healthy gender norms, skills and behaviours around reproductive health issues, improve access to integrated gender-responsive health services for adolescent girls to develop as empowered and productive citizens.

Mr Obeng-Kyere, who is also the Producer for ‘Curious Minds’ programme for young people’s lives and development on GBC, expressed commitment to sustaining effective contents for young people.

He said the project was expected to ensure that more duty bearers would receive information on adolescents, gender and sexual and reproductive health and rights issues to support adolescent girls make informed choices.

Prof Alhassan said GBC over the year had proved to be the bedrock of development programming by expanding channels on radio, television and online.

The Professor assured stakeholders of the Corporation’s professional competencies to undertake the project which focused on Communication for Development.

Prof Alhassan said GBC was ready to implement the project and pledged to heighten awareness about adolescent Newborns, Maternal Health and Lead Poisoning issues and push for the necessary response and action.

Ms Nurzhynska commended GBC for the collaboration and express optimism that the project would create educational content for the audience to influence social norms and achieve the best interest of all children in the country.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Wa,– The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has threatened to withdraw credential letters of healthcare providers that continue to charge its members illegal fees when they come to seek health care in their facilities.

According to the Authority, the charging of these illegal fees was having a toll on renewal of membership cards due to the bad experience they get whilst trying to seek healthcare in these facilities.

Mr Samuel Lobber, the Upper West Regional Manager of the NHIA who issued the threat during a media briefing in Wa, noted that these illegal charges were punishable per the contract NHIS and the service providers.

“Members who go through these bad experiences are likely to tell their experiences to potential members to influence them not to join the scheme”, he said.

Mr Lobber noted that hospital facilities were getting over 90 percent of their revenue through the NHIS and risked collapsing if they happen to have their credential letters withdrawn.

He disclosed that currently, there was a committee at the instance of Parliament working on various punitive measures against service providers that charge illegal fees and encouraged members to help identify such facilities as they could no longer continue to hide their identity.

On the high cost of medicines, Mr Lobber pointed out that as a country, they were currently doing over 30 percent of their healthcare cost on medicines, which according to him, was very bad as it surpassed the 24 percent threshold recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The Regional Manager of the NHIA cited demand and supply-side moral hazards, insufficient enforcement of the gatekeeper system, poor road network, and poor mobile network connectivity as some of the challenges affecting operations of the scheme in the region.

He, therefore, advised members of the scheme to stop jumping from one facility to the other collecting drugs, which they never complete the course but just creating mini pharmaceuticals in their homes and burdening the scheme with cost.

Mr Lobber also advised members against making the District Hospitals their first point of call when seeking healthcare and that it often resulted in congestion in those facilities, which also led to compromised quality of care for members.

He encouraged members to use the primary healthcare facilities and when the need be they would be referred to the District Hospitals for further treatment, adding that this would also help reduce the cost burden on the scheme.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, August 5, GNA – The Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu on Thursday handed over special vaccine storage fridges and freezers to the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

The US$8 million vaccine storage facilities comprised 58 ultralow temperature vaccine freezers, 50 normal fridges, 3000 ice pack freezers and 300 cold boxes.

Also 18 distribution cold vans to support the distribution of vaccines are expected to arrive in the country as part of the consignment.

This is in line with the government’s efforts to widen Ghana’s vaccine storage capacity to access more vaccines and expand vaccination coverage to meet the national immunization target of 20 million people.

At a short handing over ceremony in Accra, the health minister said there were wide ranges of vaccines released to fight the virus and the storage facilities were required to meet the criteria to access them as each vaccine required a special storage condition and temperature.

The health minister said the provision of the freezers marked a major landmark in Ghana’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So far, we have been limited to the traditional vaccine storage facilities which are limited to temperatures from plus two degree Celsius to plus eight degree Celsius, which restricted us to vaccines that required these storage temperatures,” he said.

Mr Agyeman-Manu said with the number of countries depending on AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, it was difficult for Ghana to have adequate supply.

He said the fridges and freezers procured can provide storage temperatures form minus 83 degree Celsius to plus eight degree Celsius and will enable Ghana to import any of the COVID-19 vaccines available.

He said the freezers had a storage capacity of 800,000 doses of vaccines connected to a real-time monitoring system that allowed operators to keep track of temperatures and the performance of the freezers on their phones.

Mr Agyeman-Manu said the freezers had ice liners that could maintain their set temperatures for at least 10 hours when power supply was disrupted.

The minister said the fridges and freezers would be distributed to all the regions to boost national immunization efforts in expectation of the arrival of Pfizer vaccines this month.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Wa,– The Upper West Regional office of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is targeting to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by end of December 2021.

Currently, active membership of the health insurance scheme stands at 682,622 members representing 77 per cent of the total population in the region.

Mr Samuel Lobber, the Regional Manager of the NHIA who gave the target during a press briefing in Wa on Thursday stressed the commitment and determination of both staff and management to hit the minimum 80 per cent entry requirement for the UHC by the end of the year.

He noted that as a region, they had done well so far from January to July 2021, as they were currently at 95 per cent of their annual target, adding that this was impressive because, at the end of March 2021, they were at 62 percent of the target.

Mr Lobber attributed the feat to the implementation of the strategies they took during their last meeting, noting that Nadowli-Kaleo District was the worse performed district during the first quarter of 2021 but had been able to achieve 105.64 per cent of the target due to the strategies taken at the last meeting.

He said Wa West District performed impressively well topping the district performance chart with 140.22 per cent even though it was the only district in the region without an official vehicle.

The Regional Manager of the NHIA noted, however, that the 87.65 percent performance recorded by Wa Municipal office was something to worry about as it would contribute to pulling them down from their target if nothing was done to increase the performance.

Mr Lobber noted that the 64.71 percent recorded by Nandom Municipal office was understandable because much of their mobile renewals still went into Lawra Municipal office adding that even with that the performance could still challenge many of the districts across the country.

With the coverage of the population per district, he said Jirapa Municipality was at 58 percent, Lawra Municipality 112 per cent, Nadowli-Kaleo District 79 percent, Nandom Municipality 54 percent, Sissala East Municipality 73 percent, Sissala West District 106 per cent, Wa East District 64 per cent, Wa Municipality 93 percent, and Wa West District 71 per cent of their population.

“Colleagues, if together we roll out similar strategies that worked for us in the second quarter, we will certainly reach UHC even before the end of the year”, he said.

Mr Lobber noted that with the new resources released to them they should be able to achieve their target if they again came up with new strategies appropriate to the season.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra,- Ghana’s 4×100 relay team have reached the finals of this year’s Olympics after clocking an impressive 38.

08 in men’s 4×100 round two heat.

Ghana’s quartet with this time have set a new national record and will compete in the 4x100m final for the first time since Atlanta 1994.

Ghnans’s quartet which include Joseph Paul Amoah, Sean Sarfo Antwi, Benjamin Azamati and Emmanuel Yeboah finished in 5th position as they grabbed a spot in the finals as one of the fatest non-qualifying times.

Ghana would be the only African team in the finals after South Africa failed to qualify having been disqualified in their heat.

Ghana would be in lane 9 of men’s 4×100 finals on Friday (13:50 GMT) as they battle the likes of China, Ghana, Canada, Jamaica, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Jamaica and Germany.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Bolgatanga,- Dr Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi, the Upper East Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has expressed concern about the number of nurses seeking postings out of the Region.

He said in spite of the shortage of health professionals in the Region, and the difficulty in attracting health professionals, especially Doctors and other paramedics to the Region, 150 nurses and midwives had put in letters requesting postings out of the Region.

This, he said was a major concern to the GHS in the Region, “There is high number of staff requesting for postings outside the Region. As we reviewed, we had 150 nurses and other health professionals requesting to leave the Region.”

Dr Dzotsi said this when he addressed the 13th Biennial General Conference of the Ghana Registered Midwives Association (GRMA) in Bolgatanga on the theme; “Evidence from data to champion investments in midwifery; Monitor the investments for quality midwifery.”

He said if all the 150 nurses were allowed to leave the Region, the health facilities would be left without professionals to offer health care services, especially at the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds, where nurses and midwives played critical roles.

On the shortage of Doctors as a major challenge in the Region over the years, the Director said “Last year, out of nine Doctor posted, only one reported.

“This year, we had four Doctors, but as I speak, they have not reported. Even if you call them, they don’t answer, it is a big challenge to the Region,” he said.

Dr Dzotsi said the GHS in the Region would adopt strategies to regulate postings of critical health staff out of the Region to ensure effective health care delivery across the Region.

When the Ghana News Agency (GNA) interviewed some nurses and midwives across health facilities in the Region on why they would request to leave the area, most of them, especially those from Southern Ghana, said there were limited opportunities for career progression in the Region.

According them GHS in the Region was unwilling to release qualified nurses and midwives for further studies, coupled with delays and in some cases denied promotions as compared to other Regions.

“Most of my colleagues in other Regions were given opportunities to go to school and pursue other programmes, but in this Region, it is difficult to get that opportunity,” a nurse at Tongo in the Talensi District said.

Another nurse in the Kassena-Nankana West District told the GNA that “Honestly, if I get the opportunity now to leave the Region, I will not even think twice about it. I have served more than the required number of years and I am qualified for postings out of here.

“Apart from that, my colleagues in other Regions on the same grade with me as Senior Staff Nurse, are now my seniors. They were given opportunities, for further studies. I have been applying every year in this Region to no avail,” the nurse added.

A midwife in the Bongo District also said “I am from this Region and would not want to leave, but delayed promotions, issues of salary arrears and study leave are some of the issues that may push me to request postings out of my Region. Apart from these, I have no problem.”

Source: Ghana News Agency