33 Health Facilities Get Support To Fight Maternal And Infant Mortalities

Exe. Dir. Savana Signatures

Reducing maternal and infant mortality rates in all of its health facilities across the country to the barest minimum has been a major headache to the Ghana Health Service over the years.

In Northern Ghana for instance, statistics suggest that maternal mortality rates are exceedingly higher than the national average of 320 deaths per 100,000 live births. 

Challenges such as poor road network, female genital mutilation, anaemia, lack of or inadequate health personnel as well as essential lifesaving medicines among others, account for these deaths.

That notwithstanding, improper documentation or storage of data on infants and pregnant women by nurses and midwives, sometimes lead to needless deaths that further cause an increase of the already alarming statistics.

But thanks to Savana Signatures, Salasan Incorporated and Musttimhw Solutions with funding support from Global Affairs Canada, a project called “Technology for Maternal and Child Health (T4MCH)” is currently being implemented in 33 health facilities in 9 districts in the Upper West, Northern and Volta Regions of Ghana. The districts are Sawla-Tuna-Kalba, North Gonja, Sagnarigu, Kajebi, Mamprugu-Moaduri, Wa West, Jirapa, Wa East and Nkwanta North Districts.

According to the Executive Director, Savana Signatures, John Stephen Agbenyo, T4MCH seeks to drastically reduce maternal and infant mortalities in the beneficiary districts especially communities the 33 health facilities are serving.

T4MCH is an upgrade of Technology for Maternal Health (T4MH) implemented in 2011 through the support of STAR-Ghana in 10 hospitals in the Northern Region. Like the first project, T4MCH design maternal and child health (MCH) messages and deliver them through mobile phones in SMS and Voice messages format to pregnant women up till six months after they have delivered. 

“SMS are in English but beneficiaries may choose from nine different languages including Dagbani, Gonja, Birifo, Dagaare, Ewe, Twi, Sissala among others for voice messages”, Mr. Agbenyo indicated.

As part of the implementation of T4MCH, each of the 33 health facilities will be provided with a laptop, projector, projector screen, 2 smartphones and a public address system to enable nurses disseminate educational information to pregnant women through powerpoint presentations, videos and pictures for their understanding.

The Programmes Manager, T4MCH, Abdul-Rashid Imoro told Savannahnews that, each of the health facilities will also receive a cash amount of GH¢800.00 monthly throughout the implementation of the 3-year project to enable them fuel their motorbikes so that they can carry out effective community health outreach services.

Moreover, in order to ensure an effective utilisation of the electronic or ICT equipments that will be given to the health facilities, Savana Signatures is also training selected midwives and Community health nurses (CHN) on how to operate and use them efficiently.

Programmes Manager, Savana Signatures

Recently, about 16 CHN and midwives from four beneficiary health facilities in the Sagnarigu District were trained. “The aim is to improve their skills with computers and ultimately women’s and families’ access to good MCH information.

“The trainings are designed to improve ICT skills amongst midwives and CHN and specifically focus on ICT skills for better MCH outcomes”, Mr. Imoro explained.

Ms Linda Dery, a CHN with the Kalpohin Health Centre who took part in the training in an interview with Savannahnews, lauded the initiative by Savana Signatures saying “Now, with the kind of training I have received through the T4MCH project, my knowledge will be adequately enhanced to enable me store accurate data of patients who visit the facility.

“We will no longer encounter problems with regards to data collection and storage and this means that patients conditions are monitored very well and the appropriate actions taken to address their health needs”, she noted.

With the provision of fuel money, she is happy she and her colleagues will be able to visit communities often to carry out health outreach services and this she believes will go a long way to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates.

Meanwhile, T4MCH is expected to benefit some 30,000 pregnant women by increasing their access to health facilities, increasing their knowledge about healthy pregnancies and safe childbirth. 

It will encourage regular attendance at antenatal care and postnatal care appointments. Infants born to these women will benefit from health facility deliveries under the care of a qualified midwife and follow-up postnatal care including vaccinations.

Being important decision makers about their wives’ health, husbands are also beneficiaries of mobile messaging and knowledge sharing sessions that take place between a health official and pregnant women and their spouses. 

Rampant Open Defecation in Tamale, Sagnarigu District

Residents of Tamale and Sagnarigu District in the Northern Region of Ghana are increasingly engaging in open defaecation, a phenomenon that has the tendency to compromise public health safety.

The practice is very rampant in areas such as Nyohini, Gumbihini, Warishei, Jakarayili, Jilsonayili, Choggu, Kpalsi, Kalpohin, Koblimahagu, Kukuo, Changli, Duanayili, Bulpiela, Zogbeli, Aboabo, Kanvili, Gumani, Fuo, NVTI, CEPS, Town and Country Planning, Controller and Accountant General, CHRAJ and among others.

Open defaecation is an age-old practice and very common in most communities in Northern Ghana. Roughly, over 80 percent of homes (estimate ours) in the Tamale Metropolis and Sagnarigu District do not have toilet facilities. Even in homes where there are toilet facilities, our checks have revealed that they are broken down whereas some landlords and landladies have converted spaces for such facilities into rooms for rent.

Furthermore, the few public or communal toilet facilities are either broken down, unkempt or far away from homes as some of the residents claimed in an interview with Savannahnews during our investigation.

Mohammed Awal, a resident of Nyohini said “We are far away from the public toilets and there are no toilet facilities in our homes, so we have no option but to use available lands or open spaces around. We are aware of the adverse effects but since there are no alternatives, what do we do”, he asked.

The practice of open defaecation does not only cost Ghana US$79million a year but also poses the greatest danger to human health particularly for the most vulnerable, including children.

The Tamale Metropolis and Sagnarigu District are among twelve districts out of the 26 in the Northern Region to score zero percent in sanitation in the 2015/2016 District League Table (DLT) compiled by CDD-Ghana and UNICEF. The other districts are Bole, West Gonja, Mamprugu-Moagduri, Central Gonja, Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo, Sawla-Tuna-Kalba, West Mamprusi, North-Gonja, Chereponi and Gushiegu.

A few years ago, before the creation of the Sagnarigu District, Tamale was adjudged the ‘cleanest city’ in Ghana by the Ministry of Local Government, Ghana Tourist Authority and Zoomlion Ghana Limited in 2005, 2008 and 2010 respectively. But that cannot be said of the same city in recent times.

For the past few years, residents have been very negligent when it comes to keeping their surroundings clean. Consistently, litterbins placed along most principal streets within the metropolis have been stolen by some unscrupulous persons and converted into domestic waste bins in their homes whereas some use them to fetch water.

According to UNICEF, about 22 million Ghanaians currently do not have access to improved sanitation facilities whereas 5 million are engaged in open defaecation. Also, only about 15 percent of Ghanaians have access to improved water and sanitation while the situation is 5 percent in the three Regions of the North.  

Northern Regional Coordinator of Open Defaecation Free Programme, Mr. Shaibu Dauda, told this reporter that about 72 percent of the entire population of the region engage in open defaecation. He added that only 5 percent out of the total population also have toilet facilities in their homes whereas 13 percent are committed to the use of such facilities.

The Assemblyman for Nyohini Electoral Area, Mr. Ibrahim Abdul-Razak Naporow said: “There are only two public toilet facilities in the community which are not enough for a population of over five thousand people. Some people go to the Aboabo Forest Reserve while others take advantage of available Farmlands within the community to attend to natures call”.

Nonetheless, the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly is making efforts to curb the menace of open defaecation, he noted, adding that “The Assembly in collaboration with INTAGRA, a non- governmental organization and HFC Bank have made available a loan facility for interested households or landlords to secure for the construction of their own toilet facilities”.

Ghana was in 2015 ranked second by Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) after Sudan in Africa for open defecation, with 19 percent of its population resorting to that kind of sanitation practice. Within the same year, the World Health Organization also ranked Ghana as 7^th dirtiest country in the world.

Meanwhile, the Northern Region is in a race to beat a December 31^st 2017 deadline in order to be declared an open defaecation free region in Ghana. 

We Don’t Need Multinational Gold Miners In Tinga – Local Miners Tell Govt

Mr. Mohammed Abdul Rahman Soale

Small Scale Miners at Tinga in the Bole District of the Northern Region of Ghana, have appealed to government to consider marking out concessions in the area as part of its plans to create more avenues for job creation.

According to the miners, there are huge deposits of gold and other mineral resources under the surface of the land in the entire Bole District, but failure by successive governments to take interest in putting proper structures in place to develop the mining business is creating chaos.

Briefing journalists at Tinga on the economic potentials of the area, Chairman of the Small Scale Miners, Mohammed Abdul-Rahman Soale, said miners are making a lot of money but due to the unstructured nature of the business, government is losing a lot of revenue which could have been used to provide social amenities for the people.  

“We want the Minerals Commission to open an office in the Northern Region to facilitate the speedy processing of documents required by prospective miners to go into mining instead of everything being done in the nation’s capital.

“The presence of the Commission and other institutions to put in place proper structures would bring about increase revenue to government and the District Assembly for the development of our district as well as create jobs for the youth”, Mr. Soale emphasised.

He also cautioned government against inviting foreign multinationals to come to the area for gold mining, saying “we the locals have the capacity to mine every gold deposit in Bole District. The only support we need is for government to initiate reforms that would enhance the capacity of we the local miners.

Miners Briefing The Press on Happenings At Tinga

“We would resist any attempt by government to allow foreign multinationals to invade Tinga or any part of Bole to take away what rightly belong to us as citizens of Ghana and for that matter, Bole”, he hinted.

Tinga is the second largest town after Bole, the district capital. It is blessed with large deposits of gold, and according to residents, each time it rains during the rainy season, one can fine gold being washed away.

With a population of over 10 thousand people, Tinga is seriously faced with issues of environmental degradation and crime such as armed robbery targeted at miners and gold buyers. 

Mr. Soale further appealed to government to beef up security in the area by increasing police visibility and also equipping them with the requisite logistics to maintain law and order.