Bolgatanga, Feb. 18, GNA- The Upper East Region recorded a sharp decrease in maternal mortality in 2003, recording 23 deaths out of every 1000 live births as compared to 2002 with a record of 34 deaths out of every 1000 live births.
The success story has been attributed to hard work and commitment from health personnel as well as government's promise to provide attractive incentives to health personnel in order to halt the exodus of doctors and nurses.
The Regional Director of the Ghana Health Services (GHS), Dr. Joseph Amankwa said this on Tuesday at the opening of a four-day Regional Performance Review workshop of the service in Bolgatanga.
He further indicated that even though the decline in maternal mortality is encouraging, it is not satisfactory because whereas antenatal attendance is high, delivery at health facilities is low adding that most pregnant women prefer delivering at home.
He said the service is researching into the reasons for this attitude, but attributed the trend to the cost involved in delivery before the government introduced free antenatal and delivery services last year.
The Director welcomed the policy on free antenatal and delivery services and said his outfit would embark on a public education drive to inform members of the public on the availability of the incentive and how to access it.
Dr. Amankwa commented on the human resource base of the service and said it is one of the biggest challenges confronting the GHS, adding that considering a region with an estimated population of about 951,000, there were only 20 practicing doctors, indicating that the doctor-patient ratio is one doctor to 48,000 patients annually.
He said there were only 675 nurses in 62 health facilities including the regional hospital, five district hospitals 26 health centres and 30 clinics in the region.
He mentioned weak and inappropriate communication strategies used by health officials, poor social mobilization strategies, poor supervision, weak health information management systems and a low level collaboration with district assemblies and other stakeholders in health delivery as some of the challenges, and said the service is determined to improve these significantly in the coming years.
He said the service would pursue vigorous routine programmes on mass distribution of vitamin A vaccines, de-worming of children under five and mass distribution of Insecticide Treated Nets to reduce malaria prevalence especially among children.
The regional performance review workshop would discuss measures to correct anomalies in health administration in the region in order to improve upon all areas of health care delivery.
It would also agree on targets as well as adopt friendly approaches to client services taking into consideration the introduction of Health Insurance Schemes into the system.
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