The Atwima-Mponua District Assembly has taken steps to complete three Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds, left abandoned in the area for years, because of lack of funding.
Construction works on these facilities, which were being implemented under the Community-Based Rural Development Programme (CBRDP) – a World Bank intervention, stalled after the project period ended.
Mr Stephen Yeboah, the District Chief Executive (DCE), said they would use part of the district development fund (DDF) to finish the remaining jobs.
This comes amid bitter complaints by the health authorities over the neglect of the Kuffuor Camp, Wansamire and Okyerekrom CHPS compounds, designed to bring primary care and other services closer to the people in these predominantly farming communities.
The District Health Director, Mr George Kwadwo Kyei-Fram, had expressed deep worry to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) about what he labeled as the “intolerable state of affairs”, affecting quality health care delivery.
Reporters of the nation’s wire service had gone to the area under STAR-Ghana’s sponsored media auditing and tracking of development projects, an initiative launched to put a spotlight on how government’s resources were helping to transform the lives of the people, particularly the rural population.
The goal is to aid transparency, promote accountability and good governance.
Mr Kyei-Fram had also raised concern about the lack of equipment and power supply that had rendered two completed CHPS compounds at Nkrumah and Nagode, non-operational.
This has left the entire district with only one functional CHPS facility and this is at Ahyiresu - a situation that is denying the people, majority of them farmers in difficult-to-reach communities, access to quality health.
Mr Yeboah after inspecting the projects told the GNA that they would go to every length to ensure the re-start of construction works on the projects to enable the people to get access to improved health care.
He said the projects delayed because of the combined factors of insufficient funds and the failure on the part of the people in the beneficiary communities to contribute with their labour.
