Health system under serious abuse in Wa Municipality

Wa, May 26, GNA - Mrs. Beatrice Kunfah, Wa Municipal Director of Health Services has expressed concern about the abuse of the health system by some people in the municipality.

She said some people move from clinic to clinic to collect drugs and folders, without waiting to see the extent of their recovery from the first treatment.

This, she said, has resulted in high attendance, increase work load for the staff, and high costs to the insurance schemes, while most clients of the clinics also refuse referrals to the hospitals, and resort to either local treatment or self medication.

Mrs. Kunfah said this at the inauguration of a newly constructed clinic at the Wa central market.

She said since the clinic moved to its current location in March this year, 371 pregnant women, 1,026 children below age five, had been provided with various services, while 1067 out patients were treated and 101 people were also counselled and tested for HIV. The occasioned was also used to commission four other clinics in the Municipality located at Busa, Community centre, Dobile and Kanbali. She urged the people to undertake regular screening for hypertension and glucose levels for diabetes because of the increasing trend of non-communicable diseases within the Municipality. Mrs Kunfah cited that they were 1097 cases of hypertension in 2009 as against 648 in 2008.

She said during the same period, diabetes cases rose from 20 to 139, calling for a change in lifestyles of the people in order to control the two diseases.

Mrs. Kunfah said her outfit was working at improving the quality of services and the patient- staff relationship, and to underscore that, training in customer care would soon be organized for all staff.