Kumasi Metro Health not providing ‘true’ reports to public

The Kumasi Metropolitan Health Directorate has said it has not been able to provide a true picture of health-related issues to the public and government for the past years for obvious reasons.

The Directorate explained that this is so because it has been difficult to get data from health centers in the metropolis since most personnel have refused to oblige to the directive of submitting them monthly as well as quarterly.

In an exclusive interview with MyNewsGh.com’s Syxtus Eshun in Kumasi, Grace Billy the Public Health Officer in charge of nutrition disclosed that only 50 percent of health facilities in the metropolis provide reports to the directorate.

“We have about 130 health facilities in Kumasi and we expect that they should report on their service delivery to the Metropolitan Health Directorate. However, out of this only 50 % are able to do that. What it means is that the rest (50%) who do report, we won’t be able to access and know what goes on there”. The Public Health Officer, Nutrition told MyNewsGh.com at Buokrom during an event to launch a private hospital (Buokrom Community Hospital).

Madam Billy argued that, though the Metro Directorate goes on monitoring, yet data to make accurate reports is needed to make the health service work effectively.

“Though we go for monitoring monthly or quarterly, we are also a constraint in one way or the other”. She said.

When asked how the metro health has been able to give statistics, Madam Billy said they rely on the 50 % data which mostly comes from the few government facilities within the jurisdiction.

The Public Health Officer, nutrition indicated that, out of the 130 health facilities in the metropolis, 85% percent are owned by private health service providers.

Meaning there are only about 20 government health centers in the whole of Kumasi.

Madam Billy urged authorities to empower the health directorate to be able to collect all reports for effective data analysis adding that, the Metro Health is ready to partner private health providers to be able to effectively serve the people of Kumasi.