The Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to kick-start the second phase of the Comprehensive Community-Based Primary Healthcare Strengthening (CHPS+) project in two regions in Northern Ghana.
To the tune of USD12 million over the next five years, the project, would be implemented in 15 districts of the Upper East region and seven districts of the North-East region.
It is aimed at strengthening the capacity of the primary healthcare delivery system to provide quality services in line with achieving Ghana’s universal health coverage (UHC) targets.
The Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, and Country Director of KOICA-Ghana, Mooheon Kong, at a brief ceremony, signed the agreement to bring the project into effect.
In a remark, the Country Director of KOICA-Ghana, Mooheon Kong, said the phase two of the CHPS+ project was based on the success of the initial phase which contributed to a 10 per cent reduction in institutional maternal mortality ratio and 50 per cent reduction in under-five mortalities in the Upper East region.
“Moreover, the region also observed various improvement in its service delivery such as an increase in antennal care, postnatal care and penta-3 immunisation coverage and it is only appropriate we sustain this momentum and further scale it up,” he said.
The Country Director said the new CHPS+ project would focus on improving service delivery through capacity building, provision of logistics for outreaches, enhance emergency and referral services to save lives and improve well-being.
A key feature under the project, he added, would be the introduction of low-cost digital health technologies to improve access to healthcare, promote health seeking behaviours and health outcomes.
“It is our common goal that this collective effort will enhance community engagement, improve the quality of maternal, newborn and child health services and strengthen the health system environment in general,” he said.
The Director-General of the GHS, Dr Kuma-Aboagye, commended the Korean government for its consistent support to Ghana’s health sector.
According to him, the initial phase of the project implemented in the Upper East region from 2016-2021 had made the region one of the best performing on national health indicators.
“The project helped to address core issues at the Primary Health Care (PHC) level, improving logistics and quality health services and this phase has come at the right time especially the focus on the North East region and we believe this will help raise the region to the level of the Upper East region.”
Dr Kuma-Aboagye assured that resources provided under the project would be used efficiently for the desired health outcomes
BY ABIGAIL ANNOH
