Maternal, child deaths reduce — Appiah-Denkyira
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira, has disclosed that the rate of infant and maternal deaths in the country’s hospitals has reduced drastically while safe deliveries are on the increase.
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He also said the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the country was low and that for some time now great achievements had been recorded in the fight against other diseases, which had resulted in remarkable percentage score in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for the health sector.
Dr Appiah-Denkyira made these disclosures at the 2016 Pharmacy Conference and Scientific Seminar for senior managers in the sector in Takoradi in the Western Region. The seminar was on the theme: ‘Anti-Microbial Resistance, No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow.’
He commended pharmacists and other professionals in the health delivery chain who were contributing their share in ensuring that the health sector achieved more than half of the MDGs.
The Director-General of the GHS, however, said in spite of the successes, there were challenges that had to be dealt with, particularly with regard to some threatening conditions such as microorganism resistance to certain medications, and urged the participants to work harder to find a way to deal with the situation.
Expectations
He said pharmacists had a key role to play in ensuring that patients received correct medicines that they required to treat their ailments.
‘‘We expect that those placed in charge of CHPS compounds would have some knowledge about pharmaceuticals and how drugs could be kept safe. You must interact with such persons regularly in order to know what is going on,” he said.
Dr Appiah-Denkyira further stated that there was also the need to bring back the regional therapeutic committees to advise the public on the kinds of medicines to take for their ailments, at what time and in what doses and called for the pharmacy concept at the regional level to be made functional.
He urged the participants to hold regular educational programmes in out-patient departments (OPD) as part of efforts to make people gain more insight into medicines.
Antibiotic
The Western Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Emmanuel Tinkorang, said the inappropriate use of antibiotics and the proliferation of substandard antimicrobial medicines were a major challenge facing health care.
‘‘We live in a world where many people focus on making money and do not care about the harm their activities and behaviour are having on others,” he said.
Dr Tinkorang noted that anti-microbial resistance was becoming a global threat.