Dr. Abdulai Tinorgah, a Former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has urged the service to maximize all donor financial inflows to address the financial challenges of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to speed up the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
He said unimpeded universal access to optimal health care is one of the initiatives earmarked in the current year and beyond to speed up achieving the MDGs, and that, financial constraint has been identified as a major hold back affecting the momentum of the process.
Dr Tinorgah was addressing a four-day Family Health Division Annual Review Conference in Kumasi held under the theme “Attaining the health Related MDGs, the journey so far”.
The event aimed at sharing best practices, learning lessons, setting targets and drawing plans to achieve such targets.
Speaking on the topic “Ghana’s progress towards achieving the MDGs-successes, failures and the post MDG agenda”, he said, systematic work towards broader resource, coordination, and providing space for the multiple partners is also critical.
He stressed the need for serious and sustained efforts to significantly upgrade the capacity of health facilities to provide life-saving interventions and an effective referral system.
Dr. Patrick Aboagye, Director, Family Health Division, stressed the need to strengthen primary health care, improve quality and adopt strategies that would enhance the capacity, such as task sharing in the midst of dwindling resources.
He said important successes were chalked in the year under review as far as outcomes were concerned and this has brought some hope.
He said infant, child and under-five mortalities decreased, whilst neonatal mortality remained unchanged, with contraceptive use increasing from 17 per cent in 2008 to 22 per cent in 2014.
Family Planning (FP) acceptors rate also improved, while maternal deaths recorded a decrease, he added.
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