UPPER EAST GHS WANTS MORE OUTREACH PROGRAMMES (Mirror, Saturday, June 21, 2009. PAGE 37)

From Benjamin Xornam Glover,
Bolgatanga
Dr James Akpablie, Deputy Upper East Regional Director in Charge of Public Health of the Ghana Health Service has made a passionate appeal to Faith- based organisations and other stakeholders in the health sector to sponsor specialists outreach programmes in the region.
Dr Akpablie made the appeal when the President of the Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), the social service wing of the Anglican Communion in the United States of America, Mr Robert Radtke called on him at Bolgatanga.
Mr Radtke was in the region at the invitation of the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organisation (ADDRO), which runs a Malaria Control Programme, dubbed Nets for life, to assess how well the programme was doing.
The delegation was led by the Executive Director of ADDRO, Very Rev. Dr Jacob Ayeebo and other officers of the organisation.
The Upper East Region has crisis in terms of the strength of medical personnel especially doctors. Available records state that though there are 27 medical doctors in the region, many of them are administrators leaving only nine as actually practicing in the health facilities to cater for a population of about 1.1 million people of the region.
Each of the five district hospitals has just one doctor, while the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital has only three doctors. Their services are complemented by the services of the Cuban Medical Brigade.
According to the Deputy Regional Director, in the area of specialist’s service, the region can only boast of one obstetrician and gynaecologist, one surgeon, a dentist and two eye specialists.
This, he intimated, was woefully inadequate adding that under the present circumstances one of the ways out is to hold regular out-reach programmes to enable the people assess specialists’ services.
He, therefore, called on organisations such as ADDRO to take up the challenge and sponsor such specialists outreach programmes to render services for the people.
Mr Radtke for his part underscored the need for greater collaboration between faith- based organisations and government agencies in the delivery of services. He said his outfit was impressed with the work in Ghana so far and pledged that more efforts would be put in the operation of the malaria control programme in Ghana.
The team had earlier paid a courtesy call on the Deputy Upper East Regional Minister, Mrs Lucy Awuni, who expressed gratitude to ADDRO and the ERD for their work in Ghana.