Help educate people on environmental sanitation - Red Cross

Members of the Ghana Red Cross Society have been urged to help educate people in their communities on domestic and environmental sanitation.

This would help avoid the outbreak of communicable diseases and cholera during and after the ongoing rainy season.

Mr Justice Peter Ansah, Gomoa West District Organiser of the Red Cross Society, made the call at a review conference at Gomoa Ankamu in the Central Region.

Mr Ansah said the functions of the Red Cross Society was not limited to only assisting to resolve emergency health challenges like, catering for victims of the various natural and man-made disasters, but to also take good care of all health issues which contribute to the building of healthier society.

It is for these reasons that the Red Cross has been assisting the Ministry of Health in the implementation of vital national health development programmes such as, domestic and environmental sanitation education, breast feeding, family planning, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted disease, and road safety.

Mr Ansah appealed to traditional rulers, religious bodies and assembly members in urban and rural communities to co-operate with leaders of the various voluntary groups set up by the Red Cross Society.

“This will help to press home for excellent results from health promotional programmes initiated by members of the various Red Cross Societies, organized voluntary groups in their districts and municipalities.”

He charged Red Cross Society leaders drawn from Gomoa-Odumasi, Anteadze, Apam, Kyiren, Adam, Assin, and Gomoa Assin-Brofoyedur who attended the review conference to initiate intensive house-to-house, church-to-church, mosque-to-mosque and community-to-community sensitization activities to protect the people against the outbreak of cholera.

Mr Ansah also counselled people in the rural communities to endeavour to keep their surroundings tidy all the time to safeguard their continued good health to enable them to pursue their individual and co-operative economic ventures successfully.

He charged school children, especially primary and junior high school children to play key roles in ensuring sound domestic and environmental sanitation in their towns and villages.

Health educational materials were distributed to the participants at the conference.