Companies launch health project

The Strategic Employee Wellbeing Alliance and the Development Partnerships with the Private Sector in Health and Protection (HeSPA) projects were on Thursday officially concluded through a final stakeholder meeting in Accra.

The Strategic Wellbeing Alliance was launched on November 12, 2010, in Accra as a joint venture with eight corporate partners which are operating in Ghana.

They are Accra Breweries Limited, Blue Skies Ghana Ltd, Ghana Water Company Ltd, Japan Motors, Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd, Golden Star Wassa Ltd, Superlock Technologies Ltd and the UT Group supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development through its implementing agency, the German Development Corporation (GIZ).

The goal of the alliance was to sustainably improve the health status as well as the social and financial situation of the employees, their core families and members of the immediate communities of participating private partners.

The Appliance was complemented by the HeSPA project with the objective to contribute to a sustainable public/private collaboration to facilitate public and private sector initiatives for health and social protection in Ghana and other African countries.

Dr Holger Till, the Deputy Country Director of GIZ, in Ghana said the organization would continue to support and promote the Employee Wellbeing Programmes (EWP) to raise health care standards and inject greater resources into national health and social protection systems.

He said: “We learn a lot from HIV and we are translating that knowledge into our HeSPA programme. Let’s work on the public private partnership which is already working well.”

Madam Serwaa Akoto Opoku-Ampomah, Human Resource and Administrative Manager of Japan Motors, said there had been increases in uptake and demand for EWP activities such as health screening staff and the community in general.

She said in the third year of implementation, demand for screening and other information education communication activities on a number of health issues by both staff of partner organizations and their immediate communities increased.

She said notably among these health issues was HIV counselling and testing. Madam Opoku-Ampomah said public institutions that had embraced the EWP concept include the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service, Private Sector Unit, Occupational Health Unit, Ghana AIDS Commission, the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, Ghana Revenue Authority and Ghana Water Company Limited.