Bolgatanga, May 3, GNA - One hundred and twenty health
facilities in the Upper East Region have been earmarked to receive
free solar lanterns and torch lights, Dr Koku Awoonor-Williams,
Regional Director of Health Services, announced at the weekend. Speaking at the offices of the Regional Health Directorate in
Bolgatanga, Dr Awoonor-Williams explained that his outfit had
earlier on bought 50 solar lanterns from its own resources for some
selected health facilities in the Region and that based on the impact
they had made, the Directorate decided to purchase an additional
100 solar lanterns and 100 solar torch-lights at a cost of 16,500
Ghana cedis to ensure that all health facilities in the Region
benefited. He stated the SINGH Africa, and Afrikids Partner project, with
support from Northlite, a local Renewable and Sustainable Solar
Service Provider based in Bolgatanga, with funding from the
Australian High Commission, also complemented the Regional
Health Directorate's efforts by donating an additional 100 solar
lanterns estimated at 15,000 Ghana Cedis to the Directorate. He thanked the partner NGOs for the support said the items
would be of tremendous help since most of the health facilities were
sited in rural communities which had no access to the national
power grid. Dr Awoonor-Williams indicated that almost all the Community
Health based Compounds Systems (CHPS) were cited in rural areas
and manned by young community health workers, and that basic
lighting facilities were critical for their security. He indicated that the Ghana Health Service in collaboration with
the Ministry of Energy took advantage of the natural solar resource
in the Region and recently equipped 25 sub-district health facilities
in the Region with solar energy equipment. He added that this had improved the cold change management
system in terms of the availability of potent vaccines against
preventable diseases and said it had also attracted staff to work at
those centres since they now had access to lights, radio, television
and video amenities. "There is also scientific evidence of lives that have been saved
through surgery with solar torch lights in the absence of electricity
from the national grid", he said. Dr Awoonor-Williams pointed out that the Region's vision was
to achieve zero maternal mortality in the health facilities, and said the
building of CHPS Compounds, clinics, health centres and the
provision of capacity building programmes for nurses, as well as the
reintroduction of the post basic midwifery training programme for
community health nurses by the MOH and GHS were all geared at
providing integrated primary health care and referral services in
communities on a 24 hour basis. 03 May 10
