The paramount chief and people of Kayoro in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East have cut sod and raised funds to construct a Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compound in the Kadania community of the Saboro/Kayoro electoral area.
Assembly member for the Saboro/Kayoro electoral area, Thomas Kwalase said even though community health nurses were posted to the area in the year 2020 as part of the Ghana Health Service policy to have a CHPS compound in each electoral area, there was no health facility in the area for them to serve the residents.
Mr. Kwalase said the community members were compelled to provide a temporal structure that was not conducive to serving the purpose of a CHPS compound.
He said the community members, while waiting for the government’s intervention, raised funds and have so far moulded blocks of about 65 bags of cement for the construction of a health facility.
“Let me add that, all my sitting allowances be it committee sittings, or ordinary sessions since the year 2020 in the assembly have been used for this project. As part of our mobilisation, we are currently having about 30 bags of cement for the start of the project”, he added.
Mr. Kwalase recounted a sad experience of how his wife who was due for labour lost the baby while being transported from the community to Sandema hospital because of the non-existent facility for a midwife to operate in.
“In 2019 while I was in school for studies, my wife was teaching in a primary school in the community. She was pregnant and due for labour but because we do not have a midwife around, she was rushed to Sandema. And because of the bad nature of our roads, the baby died. And I believe many people are suffering from the pain I felt during that period”, Mr. Kwalase recalled.
The assembly member thanked the community members for their benevolence towards the project. He appealed to government and corporate bodies to come to their aid in the construction of the CHPS compound to meet the health needs of the people.
The paramount chief for the Kayoro traditional area, Pe Oscar Tiyiamo Batabi II said the lack of a health facility in the Saboro/Kayoro electoral area is contributing to stillbirths and maternal mortality.
“We are not nearer to any facility except the one in Chiana which is a distance from us. The road linking to that facility is very bad that when a woman is in labour and being transported on the road, at times they die on the way and prematurely they give birth and the child will not be alive.”
Pe Batabi II appealed for government and public support to help construct the health facility in the Kadania community.
District chief Executive for the Kassena-Nankana West, Gerard Ataogye commended the people of the Saboro/Kayoro electoral area for the initiative to build a health centre, as the government plays its part since development is a shared responsibility.
The DCE promised to support the project after the assembly engineer evaluates the number of cement and other building materials needed for its completion.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah|Kadania|Ghana
