The Oti Regional Director of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Osei Kuffour Afreh, has appealed to the government to provide the region with a medical store to help improve health care delivery.
He said this would help avoid the situation where the regional health directorate travelled long distance to the Volta Regional capital Ho, for medical commodities.
He said even though the region had seen a significant development since its creation, the absence of a medical store for the directorate remained a major challenge that was hampering efforts to promote quality health delivery.
Dr Afreh made the appeal at the 2024 mid-year regional health review programme at Worawora in the Biakoye District of the Oti Region on Thursday.
He also expressed concern about a 14.9 per cent increase in teenage pregnancy cases recorded in the Krachi-West Municipality (KWM) during the first half of this year.
Dr Afreh said the Regional Health Directorate would investigate the causes of the rise to enable them address it in collaboration with other stakeholders.
He said the situation must be of concern to all and stressed the need for stakeholders to collaborate effectively with health officials in the region to address it.
He, however, expressed satisfaction about the success in the vaccination of children in the region, which ranged between 97 per cent to 100 of all childhood vaccinations.
He said it was a good indication that children in the region were protected, and commended stakeholders for the support that led to the successes achieved in child health promotion.
According to the Director, the neonatal mortality rate decreased from 3.6 in the region in 2023 to 1.69 in the mid-year of 2024 with Biakoye District recording 5.8 per cent.
He said the Biakoye situation was abnormal and explained that the situation occurred as a result of referral cases to health facilities in the district.
Dr Afreh said another problem confronting quality health delivery was poor records at the out-patients department (OPD) as many of the residents in the region were not attending health facilities to know about their health status.
He explained that there was the need for individuals not to wait to be sick before attending hospitals, since quality healthcare also included regular check-ups.
FROM SAMUEL AGBEWODE, WORAWORA