Let's promote good health instead of treating diseases

Accra, May 17, GNA - Ms Joyce Aryee, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, on Wednesday emphasized the need to change from treating diseases to promoting good health especially in homes. Achieving good health needed a look at the grassroots problems, which emanated from homes and understanding that the home environment affected the health of the people, she said.

Speaking at the Eighth Annual Public Lectures of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) in Accra she noted that certain pollutants in homes often exceeded those found outside.


It was on the theme: "Home Environment and Health." Ms Aryee said Ghanaians had turned a blind eye to all that went into keeping homes neater and safer adding that people living in densely populated areas were exposed to noise levels exceeding 55 decibels (dB).


Residents in such areas therefore did not benefit from a sleeping environment that complied with WHO guidelines of not more 30dB over eight hours, she said, adding, "we complain but we do little to remedy the situation".


She mentioned some of the health risks associated with high noise levels as pain and hearing fatigue, hearing impairment including annoyance and interference with speech communication. Ms Aryee said an estimated 80 per cent of the population in Accra lived in high density unplanned settlements where wastewater from domestic activities was unregulated hence the haphazard discharge of safe water in the yard, streets and open drains. Only a few households practice disposal of wastewater in septic tanks.


Indiscriminate disposal of waste water did not only pose a health threat to residents but was also a major environment threat to water resources since almost every water source in the country had become a receptor of waste water often containing human excreta. She touched on other public wastes and pollutants, which were having a toll on the environment and called for measures to reduce such occurrences especially in the 21st century.

Dr Joaquin Saweka, WHO Country Representative, noted that traditional hazards related to poverty and "insufficient" development were wide-range. These include the lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate basic sanitation in household and community, indoor air pollution from cooking and heating using coal or biomass fuel and inadequate waste disposal.


Modern hazards, he said, were also related to developments that lacked health and environment safeguards and unsustainable consumption of natural resources.


These include water pollution from populated areas, industry and intensive agriculture, urban air pollution from motorcars, coal power stations, climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and trans-boundary pollutions.


Evidence showed that the environment risk factors played a role in more than 80 per cent of the diseases regularly reported by the World Health Organisation, he said.


Globally nearly one quarter of all deaths and of the total disease burden could be attributed to the environment.

Dr Saweka said environmental risk factors could account for slightly more than one-third of the diseases burden. The resulting human, economic and social costs were considerable, threatening the foundation for sustainable development.


The annual cost of damage to health and quality of life due to environmental degradation was estimated at about 1.8 per cent to 3.8 per cent of gross domestic product in some countries in the continent. "Globally about one billion people lack adequate water supplies. Three billion people lack proper and hygienic sanitation facilities. Lack of access to safe water and sanitation are key risk factors for diarrhoea diseases, which remain one the major killers of children." Poor water, sanitation and hygienic practices, Dr Saweka said, added to the disease burden, causing an estimated seven to eight per cent of all diseases and injury in developing countries. The WHO Representative said crowded makeshift housing and inadequate water and sanitation were associated with elevations in the mortality and morbidity of communicable diseases, especially gastro-intestinal and respiratory diseases.


Dr Saweka said the other tool developed by WHO to aid decision makers in the identification of potential risk and impact was the Environment Health Impact Assessment.


This, he explained, served as a planning and decision making tool that aimed at identifying, predicting and assessing the impact of natural hazards and development on environmental parameters that had strong health significance. He encouraged civil society to work with government on environment, health and development issues and expressed the hope that the interactions would open up a dialogue on issues that affect both health and quality of life. "We need to work together to focus more attention on environment, health and development problems which disproportionately affect the poor and other risk groups such as young children, women and the elderly." 17 May 07