Healthcare inequities affecting women & children – Dr. Doe

The Maternal Child Health (MCH) focal person of World Health Organisation (WHO), Ghana, Dr. Roseline Doe, on Thursday stated that women and children were the most affected by health care inequities and inadequacies.

Dr. Doe made the statement when speaking on the topic “Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health in the Africa Contest” at the opening of the 2015 Family Health Division (FHD) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) annual review meeting in Sunyani.

The four-day national meeting on the theme, “Integrating Services for Better Outcomes” was attended by about 120 participants that comprised staff of the Division, Regional Public Health Nurses, Regional Health Promotion Officers, Regional Nutrition Officers and Deputy Regional Director’s in-charge of Public Health.

Other participants were Regional Directors of Health Services, representatives of the National Population Council, Ghana Education Service, and the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Systems for Health.

It was to assess the Division’s performance for 2015, share best practices, set new targets and strategies to achieve them in 2016 and beyond.

Dr. Doe said, world-designed Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programmes must therefore have basic essential service packages that provided core reproductive, maternal and child health services.

She said, services provided in the context of UHC that were integrated and went right down to the community level enhanced utilisation and promote better outcomes.

This she explained required deliberate policy decisions to involve all relevant stakeholders in both private and public sectors, adding that, all sectors including health, education, transport and environment must be brought on board.

“There is the need for political commitment, she said and stressed that governments must prioritise health care for women, children and adolescents and must be willing to spend money on healthcare”.

Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director of FHD said quality of maternal death audit remained poor because 2015 was 77.6 percent, representing a slight reduction of 3.1 percent of 80.7 percent recorded in 2014.

Dr. Kuma-Aboagye said maternal and perinatal death audited trainings were ongoing in some regions with support from partners like USAID Systems for Health.

He advised service providers to use the lessons learnt as guidance to improve on quality of maternal and newborn care to prevent avoidable maternal and newborn deaths.

Dr. Kuma-Aboagye mentioned the launch of the maiden edition of adolescent health advocacy week under the theme “Adolescent Pregnancy, a Shared Responsibility” at Techiman in the Brong-Ahafo Region as one of the achievements of the Division.

He said the objective was to sensitize the general public on adolescent health issues in general and specifically on the increased adolescent pregnancies with Volta and Brong-Ahafo Regions topping the list with 22.1 per cent and 21.3 per cent respectively in the country.