Ghana Health Service initiates league table

Accra, Oct 1, GNA-The Ghana Health Service has initiated a league table for best performing health facilities at the community, district and regional levels ahead of future national ratings to whip up their enthusiasm.
The Service would also regularly publish the performance of every health facility and reward best performing ones but sanction the non-performing ones in the coming years, Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira, Director General of Ghana Health Service, told the GNA in an interview.
He said the measures were to ensure that all health facilities performed in consonance with their vision and mission.
Dr Appiah-Denkyira said on the initial league table, three facilities made up of Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS), Sub-District and District facilities, Hospitals and Private facilities had been selected.
At the hospital level the Achimota Hospital has been adjudged the best in the Greater Accra Region, Nsawam Hospital in the Eastern Region, Bekwai Hospital in the Ashanti Region, St Francis Xavier Hospital in Assin Fosu in the Central Region and Dixcove Ahanta West Hospital in the West Region.
The rest are; Peki Hospital in the Volta Region, Kintampo Hospital in the Brong-Ahafo Region, Bole Hospital in the Northern Region, Sandema Hospital in the Upper East Region and the Nadowli Hospital in the Upper West Region.
The first and second runner-ups in the same category are Dangbe East Hospital and Dangme West in the Greater Accra Region, Attibie and Asamankese hospitals in the Eastern region, Tafo and Agogo Presby hospitals in the Ashanti Region, Swedru and Cape Coast Metro in the Central Region and Enchi and Tarkwa Hospitals in the Western Region.
The other runner-ups are Hohoe and St Anthony Catholic hospitals in the Volta Region, St John of God Hospital and Yeji Mateas Hospital in Brong-Ahafo Region, Yendi and Walewale hospitals in the Northern Region, Bolgatanga Regional Hospital, Navrongo Hospital in the Upper East Region and Jirapa, Tumu hospitals in the Upper West Region.
In the CHPS facilities; Okyerekomfo in Ga West is the best in Greater Accra, Amanase (Suhum) in the Eastern Region, Nyamebekyere CHPS in the Ashanti, Awisem CHPS in the Central Region, Kwesikrom CHPS in the Western Region, Agoufie CHPS in the Volta Region and Bantama CHPS in the Brong-Ahafo Region.
The rest are Gbangboapong in the Northern Region, Goriko/Awaredone CHPS in the Upper East Region and Kokoligu CHPS in the Upper West Region.
Explaining the criteria used in the selection, Dr Appiah-Denkyira said they assessed the attitude of the facilities towards pregnant women, children under five years, regular outreach programmes in the communities, immunization coverage, antenatal care, family planning and quarterly community durbars.
He said they also assessed the engagement of youth groups in health issues, traditional authorities and the general coordination with other stakeholders in terms of meetings, drawing of synergies, resource mobilization and the planning of the facilities.
Dr Appiah-Denkyira said the criteria would help achieve the Millennium Goals 4, 5, and 6 which have to do with child mortality, family health and malaria under-five fatality rate.
He appealed to all stakeholders to play their roles responsibly to enhance the achievement of those goals for better health in the coming years.

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Get The PINK On! Let’s Fight Breast Cancer

As the month of October begins, the world marks a full month of Breast Cancer awareness campaign program to help eradicate the menace.
Ghana is therefore joining hands with the rest of the world in one voice as we kick start a full month of Breast cancer awareness activities which has begun with the social media launch of #PAQ Against Breast Cancer initiative.
Breast cancer, which is the most common malignancy in women, accounts for 24 percent of all cancer cases. In all parts of the world today, cancer of the breast is a stark reality. For many years people have perceived breast cancer as a frightening disease surrounded by fears and myths.
One of the greatest fears expressed by almost all nearly diagnosed breast cancer patients is 'am I going to die?'. In fact nowadays, many cancers are treatable when caught at an early stage and treated early. Even if the cancer is not completely curable, modern treatments often mean that the disease can be controlled for years and many patients can live an almost normal life. Most breast cancer patients in Ghana have not survived long enough compared to counterparts in more developed countries who enjoy better survival periods, according to Breast Care International Ghana.
It is in view of this, many of the Ghanaian social media youth today have taken it upon themselves to carry out this awareness campaign to educate the Ghanaian woman of the existence of breast cancer, undertake Screening Exercises, Diagnosis, and offer Counseling with qualified personals to help save illustrious women in the society especially our sisters and mothers in the rural areas.
The #PAQ Against Breast Cancer is a social media initiative which offers a common platform of which the Ghanaian youth can learn and also in return be able to educate others on Breast Cancer.
People are encouraged to join the official social media pages to share and help create the awareness,
On Twitter Follow: @iFightBreastCan @PapaQuasy @TalkingDrumgh @Royal_Maggie @Loopy_Frimpong @CypressGH @spy360gh @iamTeekaygh @FloEazyGH
Get your PINK on and lets Fight Breast Cancer this October.

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Maternal Mortality Still High

ALTHOUGH GHANA's maternal mortality has declined by 44 percent since 1990, the current rate of 350 deaths per 100,000 live births is still very high.
A 2012 World Health Organisation report, 'Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990-2010,' which made this known, also said 29 newborns per 1,000 live births die every year in Ghana, an avoidable situation that decision makers cannot brush aside.
It is in an attempt to countenance the trend that Mamaye Ghana, a maternal and newborn health campaigner, has hosted communications and advocacy activists from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Malawi and Tanzania as part of the International Mamaye Campaign, which aims to improve maternal and newborn survival in sub-Saharan Africa.
The activists from East and West Africa gathered in Accra to attend a workshop on Effective Communications and Advocacy in Maternal and Newborn Health. The agenda was to examine the impact of the campaign which is currently promoting maternal and newborn survival in the five African nations.
The three-day event gave partnerships the opportunity to share success stories of strategies and techniques that had brought maternal and newborn health issues to the attention of policy makers and the general public. This is crucial in Ghana because it has to meet the 2015 deadline for Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5.
Dr Ann Pettifor, Director of Advocacy International and main facilitator of the workshop said bringing all the teams together was valuable because it offered activists from all participating countries a common platform to share ideas and strengthen advocacy efforts across board.
'Ultimately, we want to save lives and we cannot save mothers and babies by just talking about it. We must use evidence to bring about a transformation in the life-chances of African women and their babies. We must use evidence to persuade the politician, journalist, opinion leader, health worker of the urgency of our mission. They must be given a reason to act and they must be held accountable for every woman or child's life lost unnecessarily,' she said.
Dr Pettifor added that it is the duty of all those working in the maternal and newborn health sector, as well as the media, to consistently emphasise the need to improve the quality care for mothers and their babies.
The crisis of low rates of maternal and newborn survival is no different in Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Tanzania where mortality rates are comparable or worse than Ghana's. In Nigeria, the rate is 630, while in Sierra Leone it is 890. Also, in Malawi and Tanzania respectively, 460 deaths per every 100,000 live births are recorded.

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KATH to improve maternal health care

The management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), in collaboration with the government, has designed a programme intended to improve healthcare delivery and maternal care at its peripheral hospitals to bring down the maternal mortality rate in the country.

The programme, which also aims at facilitating the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG5) in 2015, further seeks to provide the requisite medical training and capacity building to medical officers at the peripheral hospitals.

This, according to the KATH management, would not only enhance healthcare delivery at such hospitals, but would also facilitate critical obstetric care for patients thereby reducing maternal mortality rate at the peripheral hospitals.

Briefing Daily Graphic about their initiative during an interview, the Programme Coordinator, Mr F. Mensah- Acheampong, expressed concern about the high rate of maternal mortality at the KATH, explaining that the situation had arisen because of complicated cases referred from their peripheral hospitals.

Between 2008 and the first half of 2013, 1,130 maternal deaths were recorded at the KATH.

One hundred and sixteen maternal deaths were recorded at the KATH in 2005, but the number increased to 121 the following year. In 2007, a total of 139 maternal deaths were recorded at the KATH but the number reduced to 138 in 2008.

Maternal deaths at the KATH further reduced to 114 in 2009, and in 2010, maternal deaths recorded at the KATH again reduced to 111.

Maternal deaths, however, shot up to 151 in 2011, increased again to 156 in 2012, and between January and June, this year, a total of 84 maternal deaths have been recorded.

Mr Mensah-Acheampong said it was due to this that KATH had identified 20 peripheral hospitals within its surrounding areas where consultants and senior specialists from the KATH would be attached to provide guidance and consultancy services to medical officers when the need arose.

He said one critical issue that had been contributing to the high maternal deaths at the KATH could be traced to their peripheral hospitals where medical officers only referred cases at a time they had reached advanced stage.

“Many of the cases are only referred at a time the conditions of the patients had reached critical stages, so they die before our medical officers attend to them,” he complained.

He said some medical officers at the peripheral hospitals also lacked the competence to deal with certain cases, hence the decision of management to undertake the outreach programme to build their capacity, improve their skills and enhance quality healthcare delivery.

“We have less than two years to reach the target of MDG 5, but considering the high rate of maternal deaths at the KATH and the peripheral hospitals, we may not be able to attain the target if we do not address the challenges confronting us”. Mr Mensah-Acheampong acknowledged.

He said their initiative was also meant to reduce the number of complicated cases referred to the KATH, increase the survival rate of complicated cases referred as well as reduce the number of complicated cases that would be generated at the KATH.

“We also want to use this initiative to increase the survival rate of newly born babies, hence this outreach programme to support the capacity building of medical officers at our peripheral hospitals” Mr Mensah-Acheampong explained

On how to reach out to medical officers at the peripheral hospitals he noted,“The KATH has also established dedicated mobile communication networks, where the medical officers from the identified hospitals would regularly use at no cost to brief the consultants and senior specialists on complicated cases being handled” he noted during the interview

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