Due to the poor road network in some districts of the Upper East Region, maternal mortality and child morbidity in the region is on the increase. Some districts in the region have no ambulances and most of those available are broken down.
Pregnant women in labor have to be carried by their husbands or relatives on motor bikes or bicycles to the nearest health facility. The situation contributed to an increasing number of maternal deaths with 16 women dying from January to June 2016.
It is against this backdrop that the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) as part of measures to reduce maternal mortality, child morbidity and to improve child health has handed over 24 motor tricycles popularly referred to as “motor king unbalance” to three districts of the region. The three districts thus Talensi, Nabdam and Kasena Nankana West were also given 6 motor bikes, bicycles and medical equipments to aid their work.
The donation falls under CRS 3 year project dubbed the Rural Emergency Health Services and Transport (REST) which is aimed at improving access to formal health care, provision of medical equipments to deprived health centers and provision of necessary logistics to traditional birth attendants.
In order to facilitate easy flow of communication to and from traditional birth attendants and health workers, CRS also handed over mobile phones fully loaded with mobile credit sufficient enough to last till the end of the project in 2017.
Project coordinator of REST, Andrew Deyi Saibu told the media shortly after the donation that the project since its inception last year has referred over 200 pregnant women to health facilities who delivered safely.
“Aside of that we are also constructing boreholes to health facilities that do not have portable drinking water to ease water crisis at health centers” Mr. Saibu added.
Receiving the items on behalf of the beneficiary districts, Deputy Director of Administration of the Upper East Regional Health Directorate, Peter Boateng thanked the Catholic Relief Service for the gesture and other donations by the organization in promoting health delivery in the region while pledging to use the equipments for their purpose, he appealed to the organization and other benevolent organizations to provide similar support to the remaining 10 districts to improve health delivery in the entire region.
District Director of Health for Kasena Nankana West District, Mary Stella Adapesa spoke on behalf of the beneficiary districts and said the donation has come at the right time because most communities in the district are un-motorable and are only accessible by the “motor king unbalances.”
The three year project funded by Helmsey will go a long way to improve the health situation of over one million people in communities of the three districts in the Upper East Region and another set of three districts in the Northern region.
By: Joshua Asaah/A1radioonline.com/Ghana
