Patient Safety Day marked in Accra
Ghana yesterday joined the rest of the world to mark Patient Safety Day with a call on families to play a more active role in ensuring the safety and survival of newborns and children.
The Acting Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, said promoting safe care and longevity for newborns and children required collective action from all stakeholders and not health workers alone.
Speaking at the opening of the 2025 National Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality Conference in Accra, Dr Akoriyea emphasised that while Ghana has made gains in reducing child mortality, many newborns continue to die from preventable causes due to gaps in care and delayed health-seeking behaviour.
He cited the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, which puts the country’s neonatal mortality rate at 17 deaths per 1,000 live births, with infant mortality at 28 per 1,000 births and under-five mortality at 40 per 1,000 children.
“These figures show progress compared to previous decades, but behind every statistic is a grieving family and a community left with the pain of avoidable loss,” he indicated.
Dr Akoriyea expressed the commitment of the GHS and its partners to embedding safety at every level of the healthcare system in line with Ghana’s Health Sector Medium-Term Development Plans, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards on quality of care.
He called for stronger investments in neonatal care, adequate financing for essential commodities such as oxygen and resuscitation kits, and sustained public education to empower families to demand safe services.
“Let me emphasise that the safety of every newborn and every child is not just a professional priority, it is our responsibility, our investment in the nation’s future, and our measure of progress as a society.
Together, let us ensure that every child is born safely, cared for safely, and given the opportunity to thrive,” he urged.
Newborn Care Advocate and Former Director of Family Health at the GHS, Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, in a keynote address, expressed concern over the unsuitability of many health facilities to promote safe newborn care.
She pointed out key challenges, including poorly designed newborn units, lack of basic equipment such as incubators and oxygen, overcrowding, and weak infection prevention practices.
Staff shortages and overwork were also highlighted as major risks, with neonatal specialists mostly concentrated in urban areas as well as weak referral systems and ill-equipped ambulances which further endanger babies during emergencies.
Dr Sagoe-Moses called for urgent investments in purpose-built infrastructure, adequate equipment, training and retention of skilled staff, as well as greater involvement of families in newborn safety.
“Every preventable death or injury of a newborn is a broken promise,” she said, urging collective action to ensure every child receives safe care.
For her part, the W.H.O Country Representative, Dr Fiona Braka, affirmed the W.H.O commitment to supporting Ghana in order to ensure that every child’s right to sage and quality care is achieved.
“Let us all reaffirm our shared commitment that no child should be harmed in the process of receiving care. When we protect our children we protect our nation’s future,” she stressed.
Held under the theme: ‘Safe Care for Every Newborn and Every Child,’ this years World Patient Safety Day emphasises on protecting newborns and children, from birth to age nine, from avoidable harm in healthcare settings by focusing on early intervention and creating safer environments and systems.
BY ABIGAIL ANNOH
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