Asante-Akim South to reduce maternal deaths

The Asante Akim South District Health Directorate has scaled up efforts to bring down maternal mortality as it sets up a centre to provide counselling services on reproductive health.

This was done through the joint support of the United Nations Population Fund and Marie Stopes International- United Kingdom centred global partnership providing sexual and reproductive health information.

Mr Danso Yeboah, District Health Director, told Ghana News Agency (GNA) the strategy is to target the youth amid the area’s unacceptably high rate of teenage pregnancy.

He expressed the need for deliberate steps to help prevent unwanted pregnancies and the resultant unsafe abortion that tend to cause deaths.

Reporters from GNA, the nation’s wire service visited the district under STAR-Ghana’s media auditing and tracking of development projects, an initiative launched to put the spotlight on how government’s resources are helping to transform the lives of the people, particularly those in the rural communities.

The goal is to aid transparency, promote accountability and good local governance.

Mr Yeboah said nurses at the centre are specially trained to provide clients with all the information they should know about reproductive health and this would be done at no cost to them.

The facility has been strategically located to ensure complete privacy to encourage patronage.

He invited the youth to take advantage of the centre to seek professional help to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.