By Razak Baba
Canadian High Commissioner, Madam Kati Csaba, has commended the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service and health staff in the region for the excellent efforts that have been made in maintaining essential health and nutrition services and in enhancing the infection and prevention control methods in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Health care professionals in the region are working hard to reduce the morbidity and mortality rates and to protect particularly the most marginalised from Covid-19 and other life-threatening diseases.”
Madam Csaba was in the Ashanti Region to observe the many accomplishments made in 2021 in health and nutrition, as part of the COVID-19 response project undertaken by the Canadian Government. Razak Baba follows the tour and Has come through with this report
COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the Ashanti Region, an area that consistently reported the second-highest number of reported cases. Essential services were temporarily disrupted, and the income of communities and families was significantly impacted.
In addition to the pandemic, the Ashanti Region bears the burden of neonatal mortality, which stands at 52 per one thousand live births, and the under-5 mortality rate, which is 79 per one thousand live births.
It has therefore been particularly important to focus efforts on both strengthening the capacity of health workers and adequate facilities to ensure that mothers, newborns ad young children could receive good quality healthcare. It is in this regard that the Canadian Government partnered with the Ghana Health Service to undertake the COVID-19 Response Project in the Ashanti Region.
Madam Csaba’s first port of call was at the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council in Kumasi, where she had a brief interaction with the Regional Minister, Mr. Simon Osei-Mensah.
Madam Csaba said Canada has contributed 10 million Dollars as part of a strategic partnership with the Government of Ghana and the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF to strengthen health, nutrition and sanitation services for children and women, especially among vulnerable groups in the Ashanti Region.
For his part, Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr. Osei-Mensah commended the partnership between the Governments of Ghana and Canada which is yielding concrete results in the lives of the most vulnerable children and women in the region.
Madam Csaba also visited the Suntreso Government Hospital in Kumasi where she interacted with staff undertaking COVID-19 vaccination and observed health promotion to improve the uptake of the vaccination among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic.
The Canadian High Commissioner ended her visit at the Ejisu Government Hospital, where she joined officials of the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF and the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service to officially open a Newborn Intensive Care Unit. Prior to this intervention, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was operating as a one-cubicle unit in the maternity block of the hospital. The constant congestion at the centre necessitated the need for a separate and well-equipped block to handle neonatal cases referred to the hospital.
At a durbar held in honour of the High Commissioner at the hospital, the Ashanti Regional Director of Health, Dr. Emmanuel Tenkorang gave an update on the COVID situation in the region.
The UNICEF Representative in Ghana, Anne-Claire Dufay acknowledged the tremendous impact of the COVID-19 Health Response Project within one year of its implementation.
The Canadian High Commissioner, Madam Kati Csaba said her country’s support under the COVID-19 Health Response Project will strengthen the ability of Ghanaians to access health care in these COVID times.
