Northern Region makes strides in fight against HIV among pregnant women
The Northern Regional Health Directorate has made a giant stride in the fight against Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevalence among pregnant women in the region.
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According to the Board Chairman of the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), Dr Abdallah Tinorgah, the Northern Region is currently having a prevalence rate of 0.4 per cent among pregnant women, unlike in some regions where the HIV prevalence among pregnant women stands at 3.5 per cent.
Healthcare
At the inauguration of the One-Heart Medical Centre (OHMC) in Tamale last Monday, Dr Tinorgah said the Northern Region stood tall among its equals in the fight against the reduction of HIV prevalence among pregnant women.
He said due to the vastness of the region, health care practitioners in the region were unable to effectively cater for all the health problems that were brought to them with the limited health facilities, indicating that the region was deprived in terms of health care delivery as compared to other regions in the country.
Dr Tinorgah, therefore, implored the private sector to partner the effort of the government in the provision of healthcare facilities in the region, explaining that the government alone could not provide the needed healthcare infrastructure in the country, thus the need for the private sector to come on board.
OHMC
The newly inaugurated 15-bed capacity hospital was founded by a Ghanaian-born US based medical doctor, Dr A. Nasser Adjei, as a philanthropic gesture to the people of Tamale where he was born.
The hospital has the state-of-the-art medical equipment to deal with general cases at the Out Patients Department (OPD), specialist care (cardiology), antenatal, consultations, surgery among others.
Maternal deaths
In his remarks, the Northern Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Jacob Mahama advised pregnant women to seek early health care for the early detection of anomalies with their pregnancies and to be corrected on time.
He expressed the worry that many pregnant women in the region reported at the health facilities only when their cases got worse, pointing out that according to records, only 53 per cent of pregnant women in the region delivered at health facilities with the remaining 47 per cent going to the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) for delivery services.
He said the regional health directorate was working assiduously to ensure that maternal deaths were reduced drastically in the region.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of OHMC, Dr A. Nasser Adjei, in his welcome address ,said the facility was established to complement the health care services in the region, especially in the areas of cardiovascular care.
He said the facility was not going to compete with the existing ones or duplicate their practices but to provide modern healthcare services to the people of Tamale and beyond.
