90% of diseases reported at hospitals are preventable – Health official
The Nadowli District Director of Health Services, Madam Florence Angsomwine, has said over 90 percent of diseases reported at health facilities in the district were preventable.
She said these preventable diseases, most of which emanated from poor environmental conditions, contributed significantly to the high level of morbidity and mortality in the district.
Madam Angsomwine said this on Thursday during the District’s annual health performance review meeting held at Nadowli in the Upper West Region.
She said for them to be able to create wealth through health, they must move away from the usual way of doing things and explore new ways of securing the health of the people by becoming more practical and innovative.
Madam Angsomwine said shortage of health staff, increasing burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, poor documentation and reporting, insecurity in some health facilities and inadequate staff accommodation were some of the challenges they encountered during the year under review.
She said despite these challenges successes were chalked in prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases, improvement in
Reproductive and Child Health, facilitative supervision, improve infrastructure, community emergency transport system and threats of emerging diseases such as H1N1.
On the way forward, she said measures were being made to improve the regenerative and primary health care.
She said last year, the District recorded 75 CSM cases with 10 deaths due to late arrivals of patients at the hospitals.
Madam Angsomwine commended the Nadowli District Assembly and all other stakeholders for their support and urged the health staff to use the review to seek knowledge, share information and embrace innovation to improve on their performance.
Mr. Abu Kansangbata, the District Chief Executive, said the Assembly would this year construct 12 additional CHPS Compounds to make health care more accessible to the people.
He commended the health staff for the hard work and said the Assembly had made it a priority to execute all the health sector challenges including drilling of boreholes and connecting health facilities to the national electricity grid.
Source: GNA
Korle-Bu installs lift at Maternity Block
The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) has finally installed one of the two lifts at the Maternity Block.
The installation of the new one paves the way for the second one to be installed.
The Hospital, through the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), acquired 13 lifts at the cost of GH¢2.4 million to be installed at the various Departments of the Hospital.
The Chief Executive of the hospital, Professor Nii Otu Nartey, praised the media for putting the hospital management on its toes and helping to make the installation possible.
He said management would follow it up with a maintenance agreement with CFAO Ghana Limited, the company installing the lifts. It has a one-year guarantee.
Mr Francis Dometry, Head of Lift Construction at CFAO, said the lift could carry 21 persons.
It consumes less energy and an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) system would be fixed to safeguard it against power fluctuations, he added.
“The interesting thing about the lift is that it is disability friendly and has buttons with Braille inscriptions to aid sight challenged persons,” Mr Dometry said.
Over the past five years, lifts at the nation’s premier hospital have become obsolete and dysfunctional. As a result, patients have had to be carried physically on stair cases to wards to access care.
But the hospital management last month explained that the acquisition of the new lifts had delayed because of procurement procedures, as well as the need to dismantle the old ones before the new lifts could be installed.
During a recent media tour of the hospital in January, journalists saw four double system elevators that were being installed at the Maternity, Surgical, Medical and Child Health Blocks.
Another five single lifts with the capacity to take 13 people were being installed at the Chest, Eye, Ward A and G, and the Radiology Departments.
It is expected that installations at the other departments would be completed in March.
In another development, doctors of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department have used their 2010 bonuses to refurbish its library and are also in the process of computerizing it.
Prof. Sam Obed, Head of Department, said they deemed it fit to forfeit their bonuses to help them upgrade their knowledge, adding that doing so online was easier.
Source: GNA