Cape Coast, Feb. 11, GNA - Alhaji Ibrahim Yahaya, medical officer in- charge of the Ewim urban health centre in Cape Coast, on Wednesday, expressed concern that last year alone, 334 cases of teenage pregnancies, were recorded within the municipality. Although he could not readily give comparative figures for the previous year, he said the situation, has compelled the district health directorate to mount a vigorous campaign to educate the youth to abstain from pre-marital sex.
Alhaji Yahaya expressed these sentiments at the 'Annual Review Meeting' of the District Health Service at Cape Coast. On various ailments, Alhaji Yahaya, was also concerned that hypertension has for the past three years, been among the top ten diseases recorded, and was happy that cases of malaria have reduced as a result of educational programmes mounted, although it still topped the list.
He mentioned other diseases commonly reported, among others, as upper respiratory tract infections, diarrhoea, skin diseases, anaemia, and worm infestation.
The medical officer, in this regard, echoed appeals to Ghanaians to watch their diet and to desist from habits, that could lead to their contracting preventable diseases.
The District Director of Health Services Dr Yaw Ofori-Yeboah announced that a mutual health insurance scheme, will become operational in the municipality by the end of the year.
He said educational programmes to sensitise the community for the scheme, which is to be operated by the municipal assembly, have already taken off in various communities, and appealed to all communities to embrace it when it becomes operational.
Dr Ofori-Yeboah reiterated the importance of health insurance schemes to effective health care delivery and repeated calls on Ghanaians to refrain from politicising it.
Mr. Thomas Tawiah, Principal Health Service administrator at the Cape Coast district hospital, appealed to health workers to put in their maximum efforts in the performance of their duty, because the Ghana Health Service would soon sign a performance agreement contract with the government.
"The responsibility would therefore lie on us to work harder to meet the target that we would set", he stressed Mr Kwesi Anaisie- Yarquah, presiding member of the municipal assembly, who chaired the function, pledged the assembly's preparedness to assist in improving health care delivery in the municipality.
