Komenda Health Centre institute pregnant adolescents tracking system

The Komenda Health Centre in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipality has instituted pregnant adolescents and mothers’ monitoring tracking system to provide comprehensive health services to them.

It is also to sustain reproductive health education through an effective community-to-community and home-to-home monitoring system to bring healthcare delivery to the doorsteps of all adolescents to drastically reduce the rate of teen pregnancies and it's related socio-economic challenges.

It involves the opening of a register for pregnant adolescents and mothers to enable community health service providers to strictly monitor, advice, encourage and prioritize their health needs.

Additionally, there would be support systems and effective communication and feedback mechanisms for pregnant adolescents and their parents in highly endemic communities.

Mrs. Gifty Amosah Botchwey, a Community Health Service provider at the facility made the disclosure in an interview with the GNA on the sidelines of day's training workshop for pregnant adolescents and mothers on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Right (ASRHR) and prevention of child marriage at Komenda.

It was organised by the Department of Gender in collaboration with the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and supported by UNFPA.

The innovation, which will also serve as tool for reducing asexually transmitted diseases and infections with its debilitating health risks, she emphasized, was not to encourage teenagers to get pregnant but to empower, protect and guide them to avoid the unpleasant health consequences of adolescent motherhood.

Mrs. Botchwey was alarmed by the increasing rate of teen pregnancies in the community, which totaled 448 between 2015-2017 with 2018 alone recording 115 from 108 in 2017and stated that it was a drawback to efforts at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

She attributed the practice to high poverty levels, parental neglect, peer pressure, sexual promiscuity and the burning desire or silent competition among girls to give birth early to prove their fertility.

She called on stakeholders, Community Based Organizations (CBOs), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), government, traditional and religious leaders and parents to intensify education on teen pregnancy.