Support policies to promote reproductive health - Barnes

Mr Bagbin with Ms Barnes (middle) and Anna Kaniauskene

THE President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of  EngenderHealth, an international reproductive health organisation, Ms Pamela Barnes, has appealed for government’s support for the promotion of gender equality and for sound practices and policies that support sexual and reproductive health.

She said the attainment of targets four and five of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which respectively relate to reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, ought to be a priority, particularly when Ghana was facing challenges in that area.

Ms Pamela Barnes made the call when she paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Health, Mr Alban Bagbin in Accra as part of a four-day familiarisation visit to the country.

She is in the country, together with Ms Anna Kaniauskene, Director of Programme Support of EngenderHealth International.

Whilst here, Ms Barnes will also visit some of the organisation’s projects, which provide long-term family planning services to women and interact with programme staff.

The beneficiaries of EngenderHealth’s support are mainly Ghanaian women in rural settings.

Ms Barnes said the EngenderHealth International funds programmes promoted family planning in the Eastern and Central regions, where incidents of mortality are said to be high.

She said her organisation planned to scale up its support to the Ashanti Region to include 70 new communities.

Mr Bagbin admitted that achieving the MDG goals four and five had become a challenge to Ghana and underscored the need for urgent reforms  to strengthen the health sector.

According to him, although enough regulations were in place, they lacked proper structure to ensure that the necessary reforms were carried out.

Hence, he said, the ministry had initiated action to review current legislation on the health sector to make them more responsive to the needs of the public.

Mr Bagbin indicated that the ministry would withdraw from Parliament, some bills on the health sector for proper scrutiny so that the broader spectrum of  society could be served.

He further noted that the high importance placed on curative health care consumed a large chunk of the health sector’s resources.

To reduce the high cost of curative health care, he said, the ministry was promoting regenerative health as a strategy to keep the population healthy, he said.

He commended EngenderHealth for continuously working to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity in Ghana.
Ms Barnes also called on the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Frank Nyonator, to discuss EngenderHealth programmes in Ghana.

Dr Nyonator lauded the organisation for actively supporting the government’s effort to increase family planning in the country since it set up office in 1994.

He said the Ministry of Health had developed an MDG accelerated framework policy in its bid to achieve the MDGs.

The policy, he said, concentrated on family planning, providing skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care, saying that EngenderHealth had been a key partner in promoting long-term family planning.

 
EngenderHealth, a United States (US)-based non-governmental organisation (NGO)  working to improve the quality of health care, currently operates in more than 20 countries around the world.  

Its office in Ghana has over the years supported the training of health professionals, particularly staff of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), to provide high quality services in maternal health, family planning, and HIV and AIDS.        

In addition to building the capacity of health workers, EngenderHealth Ghana has also partnered the Ghana government to strengthen the country’s health system capacity by providing some medical equipment and undertaking modest rehabilitation of some health facilities.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Thur May 10, 2012