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Health Minister assures international community of government commitment to reduce maternal death cases
The Minister of Health Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has assured the international community of the government’s commitment to drastically reduce maternal death cases, following robust systems put in place to ensure safe pregnancy and delivery.
He said although the country has witnessed an extreme reduction in maternal death cases since 1988, the government is massively investing in the health sector to ensure zero deaths during childbirth.
In a speech read on his behalf at the opening ceremony of the general membership meeting of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (RHSC) last week Friday in Accra, the Minister said, that between 2020 and 2022, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and its partners provided about $14.4 million worth of Family Planning Products (FPP) in the country.
The partners he mentioned were the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Global Fund and the West African Health Organisation (WAHO).
“Beyond this, they have continuously accompanied us on this journey through technical assistance and mentoring to make sure women have access to a variety of family planning services.
These collaborations, combined with our sustained commitment, have resulted in significant demographic shifts, notably a marked decline in births per woman [(total births per woman reduced from 6.4 in 1988 to 4.2 in 2014 (GDHS)] and reductions in household size [(4.4 in 2010 to 3.6 in 2021- (2021 Population and Housing Census” Agyemang-Manu said.
He said the Ministry of Health’s National E-Health Project, featuring the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) has gained strong prospects.
He explained that the project was a centralized health-data repository ensuring the availability of patient records across the healthcare continuum.
Mr Agyemang-Manu said the project had enhanced patient record portability across all healthcare facilities on the platform, eliminated paper patient folders, reduced container and storage space costs, and reduced patient waiting times between 35-40 per cent.
The RHSC Executive Committee Member Madam Nene Fofana-Cisse thanked member countries for their unwavering commitments to ensuring lives are protected during childbirth.
She said the meeting was to dialogue brainstorm and examine COVID-19’s impact on funding for reproductive health supplies and related markets and supply chains, drawing lessons from how the sector responded, and celebrating its unique resilience.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN
The Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh Dompreh, has expressed concern over delays in the release of the District Assemblies Common Fund, warning that the situation is stalling development across the country.
On his facebook page, he described as a matter of urgent national importance, the Minority Chief Whip pointed to what he sees as a growing crisis of unpaid contractors, abandoned projects, and halted infrastructure works in many districts.
He noted that several communities are grappling with half completed schools, unfinished health facilities, abandoned markets, deteriorating roads, and stalled sanitation projects.
According to him, many contractors who have executed projects for district assemblies have not been paid, forcing some construction firms to demobilise from sites while workers lose their jobs.
He stressed that the District Assemblies Common Fund is not a discretionary allocation but a constitutional requirement under Article 252 of the 1992 Constitution, intended to support development at the local level.
In his view, years of delayed releases and accumulated arrears have weakened district development financing and disrupted projects meant to improve living conditions in communities.
He further argued that some payments made in recent years were largely the settlement of old debts rather than funding for new or ongoing projects, a situation he believes has affected contractor confidence and local economic activity.
He described the issue as more than a budgetary challenge, characterising it as a development emergency and a governance concern.
He therefore urged the appropriate authorities to pay outstanding DACF arrears, settle contractors who have completed their work, and ensure that transfers to districts are automatic and predictable.
He maintained that decentralisation can only succeed when district assemblies receive adequate and timely funding to carry out development projects.
He emphasised that stalled projects directly affect ordinary citizens, since they rely on such infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, sanitation, and economic activities.
He called for renewed attention to grassroots development, insisting that national progress should not be concentrated only in major cities but extended to all communities.
By: Jacob Aggrey
Richard Appiah, the footballer who killed two children and stored part of their bodies in a fridge at Abesim in the Bono Region in 2021 has been handed a lifetime sentence.
This was after a five member panel of judges at the Accra High Court returned a verdict of guilty against the convict.
Appiah, 32, also a draughtsman would spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of murder.
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BY MALIK SULLEMANA
