Meningitis: Parliament unimpressed with MoH

Parliament’s Health Committee has said it is not impressed with the Ministry of Health’s efforts in tackling the Meningitis outbreak, which has, so far, claimed 93 lives.

Health Minister Alex Segbefia on Friday April 15, announced that the number of Meningitis cases recorded across the country stood at 2,182.

According to him, the Ministry was enhancing laboratory and surveillance capacity development across the country to reduce the prevalence of the disease.

But the deputy ranking member of health in parliament, Collins Ntim, has said the ministry should do more to resource district hospitals across the country in order to eradicate Meningitis.

He told Class News: “Why should 93 people die of Meningitis in the 21st century? It is all because we have not taken the issues of management seriously. When you visit various districts now, you realise that monies supposed to be given to them to be able to handle [and] manage issues of public health, they are not getting it. Do you have to wait for people to die before you take ad hoc, panic measures? That have been the bane of the process.”

“And the serious and sad aspect is that the people are dying not at the regional level, not at the national level but at the rural and sub-rural level.”