Akorabo (E/R), Oct. 15, GNA – Pregnant women from the Akorabo Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) catchment area of the Eastern Region, have been urged to patronize RCH programmes.
About 34 small towns are under the RCH at Akorabo in the Suhum Municipality.
Mr Daniel Adomako, a Community Health Nurse (CHN) told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Akorabo, that most people in the area refuse to patronize the clinic because they prefer to treat their ailments by themselves at home.
In an interview with GNA he said most pregnant women prefer to deliver in their homes instead of the clinic and stated: “Recently, attendance by pregnant women at the Akorabo RCH has been very poor, coupled with high risk of maternal deaths in the area”.
According to him, the situation had persisted for long and that pregnant women in the area refused to attend the clinic to deliver and quoted a young woman as saying; “my grandmother has wealth of experience as a birth attendant, and therefore, I feel comfortable with that”.
Mr Adomako said they used herbs in curing diseases without any advice or direction from the herbal centres around, and waited until the situation worsened before they rushed to the clinic.
He noted that the RCH programme has contributed greatly to improve the life of rural dwellers, especially in the area of preventive health care and therefore, advised patients to patronize the clinic since the situation potentially puts the lives of pregnant women in danger and could also reverse the gains the programme has made in the reduction of maternal mortality.
Mr Adomako said: “Notwithstanding, the clinic had embarked upon durbars to the various communities to explain the importance of the RCH and to sensitize them on the need to deliver at the clinic”.
“There is empirical evidence indicating that where the programme has properly been managed, infant and maternal mortality have reduced drastically”, he observed.
GNA