HIV/AIDS healthcare delivery in W/R challenged - but records progress
HIV/AIDS healthcare delivery in the Western Region is saddled with inadequate human resource due to frequent transfer of trained staff from the unit and lack of antiretroviral drugs in the districts.
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Besides that, a number of the districts are yet to get centres and the needed key staff to ensure properly designated places for clinical care.
Even though the region has made some progress in terms of reducing the prevalence rate, there is still a lot of work to be done, according to an official at the care centre.
Speaking at a two-day media training on HIV/AIDS and STDs in Takoradi, Dr Roland M. Sowa, the Western Regional HIV/AIDS Coordinator, said there was the need to increase the number of data officers and motivate staff.
The training was sponsored by the United States Embassy in Ghana and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
The global fund is focused on the fight against HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria and bacterial tuberculosis to ensure an AIDs-free generation.
Staffing & bad roads
Dr Sowa explained that with adequate staffing, the centres would be able to take care of the people on clinic days and others could be assigned to track carriers and related deaths.
He said one of the challenges had to do with the fact that some districts had bad roads and therefore were very difficult to access.
Dr Sowa also said the Comprehensive Care Centre (CCC) at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Referral Hospital currently required additional medical officers and nurses to support its activities.
With the increasing number of patients and the need to ensure confidentiality, their personal data had to be computerised instead of the writing these in folders, he said.
The media support
For his part, Awulae Amihere Kpenyile III, the Paramount Chief of the Eastern Nzema Traditional Area and Member of the Western Regional House of Chiefs, said the pandemic still remained a mystery.
“Though a cure has still not been found, HIV AIDS seems to have been relegated to the background and other diseases such as Ebola have in recent times taken a centre stage,” he said.
He also said without sustained effort, the public, especially the youth, might fall into the Most-at-Risk Population bracket, which could erase the successes chalked up in the past decade.
The Editor of the Ghanaian Times newspaper, Mr David E. Agbenu, took the media through various aspects of social and health reporting.
