Wa, Sept. 04, GNA - Mr George Hikah Benson, Upper West Regional Minister has called on health personnel in the Region to find pragmatic ways to address the high child mortality and morbidity rates, HIV/AIDS and the prevalence of Tuberculosis and Cerebro Spinal Meningitis (CSM) that were retarding the Region's development.
He said "once you have accepted to work in the Region when others have refused to come, once you have agreed to work in Ghana while others are seeking greener pastures elsewhere, then the best you can do to yourselves is to ensure satisfactory service to the people". Mr Benson made the call when addressing the opening session of a four-day mid-year performance review conference of Ghana Health Service in the Region at Wa on Tuesday.
The Conference would take stock of past performance while presentations and thorough discussions would be made on priority areas in the health sector that needed serious attention in the Region to set goals and map out strategies to achieve them.
Mr Benson reminded the health workers that government looked up to them for the successful implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme and expressed the hope that they would accept the challenge and rededicate themselves to ensure easy and affo rdable access to health facilities for people in the Region.
Dr Erasmus Agongo, Upper West Regional Director of Health Services said UNICEF had mobilized 1.6 million dollars while DANIDA also contributed GH=A21.2 million (12 billion cedis) to support the Region to reduce its high child mortality from last year's rate of 208 per 1,000 live births to 104 per 1,000 by 2008.
This, he said should therefore be a challenge for all health personnel in the Region to work hard to enable them achieve their targets since any thing short of that would be an indictment on them.
