‘Weighing’ has not stopped with COVID-19 — GHS
The acting Director of the Family Health Division of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, has called on parents to continue taking their young children to the Child Welfare Clinics, popularly known as “weighing”, on their scheduled dates for service.
She said the clinics were still in full operation to ensure the health of children was not compromised due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Speaking to the Daily Graphic, she said: “Essential services such as immunisation, Vitamin A supplementation and growth promotion are still being delivered.”
Get children immunised
Dr Sagoe-Moses said this was the time parents had to get their children immunised because if they did not, the children stood the risk of contracting any of the diseases they were normally immunised against.
Such children, she added, could die from vaccine-preventable diseases or end up with disabilities like blindness, deafness or lameness.
"Routine Child Welfare Services are very important for optimal child growth and development. Children still need to be immunised, they need their Vitamin 'A' supplements which will boost their immunity and without which they will be at a higher risk of infections, including COVID-19," she stated.
Prevention measures
Dr Sagoe-Moses indicated that the GHS had put in place various measures at the clinics to prevent the possibility of parents or their children getting infected with COVID-19 when they visit.
These, she said, included handwashing facilities for clients and health workers, preventing overcrowding and attending to the children as quickly as possible so that they could go home early.
She encouraged parents to be an example to their children by practising frequent hand washing with soap under running water and also reminding their children to wash their hands frequently.
She also emphasised the need to stay at home and prevent outsiders from visiting their homes.
“Children love to hold and touch people and surfaces. It is, therefore, important for parents to remind them not to do these things. They should be given practical examples of social distancing. Additionally, they should be taught to cough into their elbows or into a tissue which should then be discarded safely.
"We need to keep on reminding them. The good thing is that when children get the message from trusted people and they understand, they tend to spread it to other children and adults, serving as checks on everyone," she added.
