Ministry of Health launches HIRD Supplementary survey

Kumasi, Sept. 3, GNA - Mr. Abraham Gyimah-Odoom, Deputy Minister of Health, has said that information is paramount in any decision and resource mobilization processes to help attract more investments into the health sector.

Mr. Gyimah-Odoom was speaking at the launch of the High Impact Rapid Delivery (HIRD) Supplementary Survey for 2007 in Kumasi at the weekend. HIRD is a major national strategy aimed at accelerating child and maternal survival in Ghana and also to fast track the achievements of Health Millennium Development Goals.

He said information in shaping policies and improving the implementation programmes of Health had long been recognized by development practitioners in the country. Mr Gyimah-Odoom observed that the competing demands for resources and the overall lower than expected growth in resources available to the Health sector calls for stricter setting of priorities and continuous review of them in the context of the five-year programme of work. The Deputy Minister described the survey as vital to the development of the country.

Mr. Augustine Botwe, HIRD Programme Coordinator, said the survey is was a collaboration effort among the Ministry of Health, Ghana Statistical Service and UNICEF, Ghana. He said the survey also aimed at evaluating the implementation of the programme interventions and Accelerated Child Survival and Development through rapid delivery of high impact approaches in Upper East Region. Mr Botwe announced that as part of the survey, 80 Field Officers had been recruited to interview and create a substantial increase in statistical confidence for all indicators collected for the target regions and districts.

He said under the first phase, the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions would be covered while the second phase caters for districts in the Central, Greater Accra and Kumasi Metropolitan areas, adding that, the results would be compiled by the end of the year. Dr. Yasmin Ali Hague, UNICEF Country Representative, in a speech read for him, pledged his outfit's preparedness to assist in the development of Health and other sectors in the country. Dr. Grace Bediako, Government Statistician, announced that the United Nations Development Programme, in collaboration with the African Development Bank, World Bank and the DFID had plans to prepare a national strategy for the development of statistics.