Do not rationalize high HIV prevalence, fight it – Minister
The Eastern Regional Minister, Dr. Kwasi Akyem Apea-Kubi, has kicked against the rationalization of the region’s high HIV prevalence and called for a drastic action plan to reduce the pandemic’s hyper rate of infection.
He was speaking at the formal opening of a three day annual internal review meeting of the Koforidua Regional Hospital at Koforidua on Wednesday.
The Regional Minister expressed appreciation of the efforts of health officials in the Region but said the flood of public complaints about the poor quality of service called for circumspection.
Dr Apea-Kubi said within the last three years, the Government had contributed a lot in terms of infrastructure to bring health care closer to the people and mentioned some of the projects in the New Juaben Municipality as Koforidua Polyclinic and Oyoko Health Centre.
The Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Erasmus Agongo, observed that the challenge associated with health delivery was standards must always improve.
He said the present human and equipment limitations at the hospital called for effective strategic planning and use of resources.
Dr Agongo said going round the region, he realized that, performance was ebbing due to indiscipline, refusal of people to be regular at work and poor supervision and appealed to management of health facilities to define the role of every worker.
Earlier, the Medical Director of the Hospital, Dr Daniel Asare, said the hospital had made progress within the last few years and currently, the laboratory of the hospital is adjudged the best in the country.
He said the hospital had designed a record keeping system that allows for easy retrieval of patients folders thus reducing time spent on documentation.
According to him, the hospital runs on the resources generated internally (Internally Generated Funds IGF) but in recent times, payments have been very erratic making it difficult for the hospital to pay suppliers.
He regretted that since September, last year, no new payment had been made by the National Health Insurance Secretariat (NHIS) and that was disturbing the facility’s payment schedule.
Source: GNA