The Upper East Regional Minister, Stephen Yakubu, has admonished officials of the Ghana Health Service to generate accurate data to improve health service delivery in the region.
He said accurate data was key in the health care system to achieve accurate results for policy decisions.
Mr. Yakubu spoke at the 2022 Annual Performance Review Meeting of the Ghana Health Service in Bolgatanga on the theme: “The Role of Quality Data in Improving Service Delivery Outcomes.”
He bemoaned the unprofessional conduct and negligence on the part of some health workers, which sometimes led to the loss of lives: “Staff who engage in unprofessional conduct, when identified, should be severely sanctioned to serve as deterrents to others.”
He encouraged health professionals in the region to attach a high level of professionalism to their work and endeavour to create a good rapport between themselves and patients.
In his address, the Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi, enumerated some achievements and successes of the service in the year under review.
He said maternal deaths in the region had reduced from 43 in 2021 to 27 in 2022, and stillbirths had decreased from 14 percent in 2021 to 11 percent in 2022, which was below the national target of 11.5 percent in 2022.
He said the region’s record in malaria has a five-case fatality rate of 0.03 percent, which he described as the first three best in the country.
Dr. Dzotsi said there was also a decline in new HIV/AIDS infections from 1,214 in 2021 to 921 in 2022 and reminded members of the public that the disease was still in the system, adding that the tuberculosis rate increased from 47 percent in 2021 to 50.2 percent in 2022.
He noted that despite the region’s achievements, there was a shortage of health staff in the region, saying the region had only four specialists at the regional hospital and some cases that needed specialist care had to be referred to Tamale or Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospitals in the Northern and Ashanti Regions, respectively.
Source: Upper East Regional Coordinating Council
