The Ghana Health Service (GHS), as part of efforts to improve health promotion in the Northern, Upper East, and Upper West regions, has inaugurated a 7-member Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee for Health Promotion (ICC-HP).
Dr. Dacosta Aboagye, Director of the Health Promotion Division of the Ghana Health Service, who inaugurated the committees in Tamale, stated that the mandate of the regional committees will be to support the government through the regional health directorates to achieve their mandate in reducing non-communicable diseases, among others.
“The inauguration of the committees is very crucial at the time of the pandemic of non-communicable diseases where hypertension, diabetes, stroke, teenage pregnancies, etc. are on the rise. It is just appropriate that these committees work to support the regional health directorates in reducing these incidents,” he stated.
Dr. Aboagye tasked the members of the committees with leveraging synergies among stakeholders in addressing the region’s health challenges. The ICC-HP was recreated with support from the USAID through the Accelerating Social and Behavior Change (ASBC) project under the existing Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE).
Deputy Chief of Party for the project, Alhassan Hudu, called for private-sector support in public health promotion just like it did during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent disease outbreaks.
“Our work is to see the Ghana Health Service in a lead role, supporting and working with the private sector to provide some leverage in terms of the public health agenda so that we can have a healthy population. When we have a healthy population, our economy will boom up for a prosperous nation.”
The Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee for Health Promotion (ICC-HP) was established in June 2010 but became inactive in 2013. Between 2015 to 2019, it was reconstituted, and regional committees were formed to support the nationwide implementation of activities.
The National Administrator of ICC-HP, Renee Opare-Otoo, mentioned in a presentation that the function of the committee members includes providing leadership and vision to deepen understanding and practice of health promotion, and to advocate for and position health promotion as the pivot for assuring public health.
She added that the committee is expected to support the coordination and harmonization of the practices and activities of all players providing health promotion services and activities in the country to achieve consistency in messaging in media and materials.
For all regions, the members of the committees include the Regional Deputy Director of Public Health, a key regional NGO, a media house, the Information Services Department, the Environmental Health and Sanitation Department, the Regional Health Promotion Officer, and a private sector entity.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah|Tamale|Ghana
