BY Albert Allotey,
Accra, Dec. 11, GNA – Mr Labram Musah, National Coordinator of the Ghana NCD Alliance (GhNCDA) has called on the Government to own and institutionalise the annual national high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) for more attention.
“The event and the activities of the GhNCDA over the past years has help in putting a spotlight on NCDs in Ghana. It has created some level of awareness and given some policy directions on NCDs.
“The expectation of the Alliance is to ensure that government owns and institutionalise the National High-Level Meeting on NCDs for it to gain a more attention and support,” he stated.
Mr Musah made the call in an address at the sixth National High-Level Meeting on NCDs on the theme: “Building a Coordinated Front to Bridge the NCD and Mental Health Response Gaps to Achieve UHC in Ghana.”
The event is the GhNCDA annual flagship programme, which aimed at pitching thematic areas of NCDs as a national priority for a well-informed multi-sectorial response.
The Alliance held this year’s programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation – Ghana.
It was supported by Pharm Access and the World Vision Ghana to extensively engage stakeholders to fashion a direction for the national response guided by the National Health Policy, National NCD Policy, and the National NCD Strategy.
Mr Musah highlighted some of achievements of the GhNCDA as making the diseases visible and has become a national priority and concern among key health stakeholders including the Ministry of Health (MoH), Ghana Health Service, Foods and Drugs Authority, development partners, among others.
Others were health education and promotion thus reaching out to communities with health literacy by informing the people about the NCDs and its consequences specifically the diseases risk factors.
“We are believers of prevention, prevention, and prevention, because this is one of the main drivers of NCDs. So, we want to deal with the issues focusing primarily on the root cause and not the firefighting approach,” stated.
The rest were capacity building through ‘Our Views Our Voices’ initiative of the Global NCD Alliance and by that many people with lived experiences of the diseases have been built, saying; “Today we are proud to mention that we have five networks of people living with NCDs in five regions supporting advocacy and awareness at the local and regional levels.
“We also have a member on the National NCD Steering Committee, supporting developments with respect to NCDs in Ghana at the National level. We thank the MoH for that recognition.”
GNA