Bad attitudes undermining quality healthcare delivery - Yeboah

Dr Yaw Yeboah, Chairman of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Council, has expressed upset with growing acts of indiscipline by some health workers.

He said there had been increasing reports of rude and bad conduct towards patients by some of the health professionals, something that was unhelpful to efforts at providing universal access and quality healthcare to the people.

He was speaking at the annual Ashanti Regional Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) forum in Kumasi.

Dr. Yeboah said the challenge now was how to deal with the indiscipline and assist everybody to do the right things to meet public expectation - the needs of the people.

The forum was organized by the Millennium Promise, under its “One million community health workers campaign programme” in collaboration with Regional Health Directorate, to discuss and share ideas on the effective implementation of the CHPS programme.

The occasion was also used by the Millennium Promise to present medicines mobile phones and other logistics worth GH?445,000.00 in support the CHPS programme in the region.

Millennium Promise is already supporting seven districts in the region by way of training of Community Health Officers, and Community Health Workers and the supply of ICT tools - mobile phones, tablets and laptops to aid e-health care delivery in these areas.

The beneficiary districts are Sekyere-Kumawu, Asokore-Mampong, Amansie West, Amansie Central, Bosome-Freho, Ejura-Sekyedumase and Sekyere-Central.

Dr. Yeboah said the GHS was working towards getting all health workers to uphold professional ethics and be more responsive to the needs of the people.

“No matter the equipment, infrastructure and facilities provided, if health professionals continue to show poor attitudes, we will not have the kind of quality needed in health care, we are all to see in the country”, he noted.

He spoke of steps taken to scale up health promotion and said the health promotion unit of the Service had now been elevated to a directorate status to make it more visible.

Dr. Yeboah commended Millennium Promise for its strong support for the CHPS programme and said the e-heath concept was the surest way to increase universal access to health at all levels.

Mr. Simon Osei-Mensah, the Regional Minister, in an address read for him, said effective and efficient implementation of the CHPS programme was vital to achieving equity in health care services.

He added that the application of technology was becoming important in providing health information and access, especially in rural communities.

Mr. Osei-Mensah asked the district assemblies to build more CHPS compounds to increase access to quality health care by majority of the population.

Chief Nathaniel Esarko, Country Director of Millennium Promise, said training of community health workers and equipping them with needed skills was the way forward to enhance quality health care services.