A new health approach to healthcare delivery in the country is scheduled to be launched by the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Director in-charge of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Alberta Biritwum Nyarko, has announced.
Dubbed: “Networks of Practice” (NoP) the new approach would seek to improve health service delivery through the existing primary healthcare system, especially at the sub-district and community level.
As part of the approach, all Community-based Health Planning Systems (CHPS) compounds would be upgraded into health centres and provided with the necessary logistics and personnel to enable them function effectively.
Dr Nyarko disclosed this to journalists at a media briefing organised by the Ministry of Information in Accra yesterday.
She said the NoP was a model of care which deliberately builds a network of health care and supports them at sub district levels to work optimally to strengthen the primary health centre.
Explaining further, Dr Nyarko said under the NoP, a group of public and private health services providers would be interconnected through administrative and clinical management for a better client service, reduce unnecessary death and ensure rapid and appropriate response to clinical and public health emergencies.
“We at the GHS have measures in place to combat the issue of unnecessary crowds, overworked doctors and nurses, long distances client cover, cost incurred and time wasted to access quality health services at the district health centre,” she said.
Dr Nyarko said the measures put in place would provide hospitals in sub districts, communities and schools with the needed equipment and qualified personnel.
She said this would improve referrals and give the feedback that would help track the effectiveness of the services rendered by the various health centres.
“We will do so by working together with both the private and public health centres to strengthen the health care services in the districts, sub-districts through a hub. This will give all persons in the country an easy access to medical care and ease the struggle clients used to go through to access medical care,” she emphasised.
In a related development the Programmes Manager, National Malaria Elimination Programme, Dr Keziah Malm, said as part of the malaria elimination plan, all district interventions including quality case management, intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy and larvae source management would continue.
She said as the country tried to improve the network as well as the quality of service, there was the need to “push the bar higher” since malaria was the number on the burden of diseases.
Dr Malm said the mandate of the NMEP was to lead all the elimination efforts in the country, coordinate activities of all agencies and partners.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL & DEBORAH TEIKO MARTEY