Kpare CHPS urgently requires support for maternity ward

Pregnant women at Kpare and its environs in the Lambussie District receive skilled delivery services in Out-Patient Department at Kpare Community-based Health Planning and Services, according to health workers, against standard practice.

Though there is a maternity ward stocked with beds, it had not been put into use since its completion in February 2018 because it has not been connected to electricity grid.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Kpare on Thursday on the sidelines of a ceremony to donate assorted medical consumables to the facility, Madam Mavis Banni, said the situation impeded quality maternal health service delivery to the people.

The Government of Ghana introduced the CHPS concept as a strategy to bring health services delivery to the door steps of the people and to ensure timely access to primary healthcare in a bid to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030.

Target 3.1 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) also seeks to “reduce global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births” by 2030.

However, achieving these targets would be a mirage if the government of Ghana did not revamp efforts to ensuring women’s access to quality and timely maternal health services at all levels.

“We are supposed to detain women who deliver for about 24 hours, but because we do everything in this room, that is detention, delivery, consultations, we are not able to detain them, we allow them to go home some few hours after they deliver,” Madam Benni said.

She described the practice as injurious to the health of the women and newborn babies as they did not receive the needed special attention after delivery, which could result in health complications.

Mr Haruna Bayong Suglo, a Community Health Nurse at the facility, said the facility had been upgraded to CHPS with delivery services and a midwife stationed there, but it had no delivery room, making service delivery difficult.

He noted that the facility also lacked patient’s folders which compelled them to use exercise books as folders, but that their request from the District Health Directorate had not yielded any results.

He appealed for public support to help connect the maternity ward to the national grid so that health workers could render quality maternal health services.

Mr Suglo also prayed the government upgraded the facility to a Health Centre.

A lactating mother, who only gave her name as Winifred, told the GNA that the environment in which pregnant women were delivering was not conducive as privacy of the women was highly compromised.

Meanwhile, Madam Rebecca Alabilla, the Lambussie District Health Director, said she had made a report to the District Assembly about the lighting system, and appealed to them to fix it but no action had been taken.