Nkoranza health service reviews performance

Mr. Kofi Amofa-Yeboah, Nkoranza South District Nutrition Officer, has advised the general public, operators of chop-bars, restaurants and other food vendors to use iodated salt in meals they prepare to help improve the nutritional status and health of patrons.

He called on district directors of education to frequent beneficiary communities of the school feeding programme to encourage matrons to do same to enhance the proper growth of school children.

Mr. Amofa-Yeboah was briefing stakeholders of Nkoranza South District Directorate of Health Services at a 2011 annual review meeting of the activities and performance of the directorate at Nkoranza.

He noted that in spite of the Government’s policy on the use of iodated salt launched in 1995 some people still used non-iodated salt to prepare meals at home.

The district nutrition officer added a survey conducted by his outfit at the local markets in Nkoranza revealed there was an increase in the sale and consumption of non-iodated salt.

Mr. Amofa-Yeboah attributed the situation to the fact that a greater number of the people lacked knowledge about the importance of iodated salt.

He called on environmental health officers to closely monitor the operators of chop-bars and restaurants to save patrons from deficiency diseases through the non-use of iodated salt.

Good health hinges on proper diet and nutrition, he stated and advised people to ensure they took in balanced diet, he said.

The district nutrition officer mentioned hypertension, diabetes and anemia as the main non-communicable diseases prevalent in Nkoranza area and announced that his outfit would soon embark on community sensitization programmes to control the cases.

Mr. Amofa-Yeboah advised the general public to eat more raw fruits than canned and bottled ones “since the raw ones contain all the natural food nutrients”.

Source: GNA