The Municipal Health Director for Ahanta West, Mrs Caroline Otoo has admitted that the health directorate of the Municipality has been, and is still battling with malaria. She says malaria is high burden in the Municipality but she thinks it is a nationwide problem and not exclusive to Ahanta West.

She observed that child health and immunization improved considerably while maternal health indicators were not too good but at least the directorate made improvement. Mrs Otoo disclosed that “our major challenge was getting resources to carry out our duties, the first half of last year [2019] was very difficult.”

In 2020, the Municipal Health Director hopes that there will be resources to start up business even as they have also put proper measures and plans in place to deal with various challenges. Currently, she bewrayed that they are depending on their Internally Generated Fund (IGF) and funding from the government.

We are depending on our Internally Generated Fund (IGF) and funding that comes from the government. The only challenge with IGF is getting NHIS submissions reimbursed on time so that when we plan activities, we can carry them out.

She added that they are still sourcing funding from companies around as one Wayo Engineering has responded, and is supplying laboratory equipments for one of the CHIP compounds.

Teenage Pregnancy

Mrs Caroline Otoo attributed the high rate of teenage pregnancy in the Municipality to early exposure of the teenage girls to men, parental neglect, customary right and peer pressure among others.

In an exclusive interview with Agona Nkwanta based Ogya FM’s Ngosraba Ekow Yankey, the health director scored that a few interventions put in place in 2019 saw a marginal decrease of teenage pregnancy from 17.1% to a little over 16% and hopes that they would gradually get to where they actually want.

HIV/AIDS

Another critical issue she touched on was clients who have been tested HIV positive but do not want to disclose their partners to the health authorities for them to treat their partners, adding that some HIV positive patients do not want to be tested and treated at all.

Now HIV is not as dangerous as we thought it is, she unequivocally stated.

Dixcove Mortuary Challenge

In their bid to address the challenge facing the mortuary, management of the Hospital have decided to convert the mortuary into a cold room but the budget that comes with it is very big. Madam Otoo said the Hospital has plans but the money to carry out the plans is the challenge, thus, she entreated companies and philanthropists to come to the aid of the Dixcove Hospital.

State of the Maternity Unit of Agona Health Centre

Many women in labour travel to Axim or Takoradi to access maternal healthcare because there are not many facilities in the Municipality that conduct deliveries. She maintained that “the facilities we have don’t have the equipment and setups comparable to Takoradi so the women come to us and think that they are better off going to Takoradi.”

She, however, said that it is not easy refurbishing the maternity unit because it is capital intensive, therefore anybody who is touched can support their facility to be upgraded to a modern maternal unit so that women would be attracted to it.

Another problem for not accessing our maternity unit is proximity. They don’t find it difficult getting to Takoradi to access the healthcare that they want.

I’ve tried to put a number of midwives to the remote communities.

Meanwhile, she told Ekow Yankey that the Ministry of Health is aware of all the challenges they are facing.

Story by: Christian Yalley|chrisdaily