By Eric K. Amoh
Bolgatanga, Feb. 6, GNA – The Ghana Health Service has organised a day’s training for some selected members of Over The Counter Medicines Sellers (OTCMs) Association in the Upper East Region on community-based family planning services.
The one-day training which drew participants from districts in the region, looked at the overview of community-based family planning methods, including condoms, oral and emergency contraceptive usage, counselling, referral, recording and reporting of data on family planning services.
The Upper East Regional Director of Health Service, Dr Samuel Kwabena Boakye Boateng, noted that OTCMS were first point of call and with contact shifting, they added family planning services to ensure that the Regional Health Directorate also captured their activities to reflect in the service’s annual performance review to make data collection on their data systems complete.
He asked participants to seek clarifications where they had difficulties and said the region was poised to get its annual reviews right., saying, “We want to be the best health destination in Ghana”.
The Regional Director advised them to work within the ambit of the law to ensure that they and their assistants provided professional services.
Mrs Monica Lamisi Sadungu, Reginal Public Health Nurse at the Regional Directorate, who outlined purpose for the training, said there was growing need for proper education for clients seeking family planning services.
She said over the years, several strategies have been employed to educate patrons of family planning services, adding that it was necessary to occasionally give members of OTCMS who direct point of sale contacts for service seekers are.
Gifty Mma Nyaaba, a Public Health Nurse at the Regional Health Directorate, who facilitated the training took the participants through various family planning methods, called for elaborate counselling to service seekers to provide quality service to them.
She called on OTCMs to keep records of concerns expressed by patrons and forward such concerns to appropriate health professionals to enable them to log such cases for better future reviews.
She warned that there were some families planning services that OTCMS could not provide and advised them to refer such cases to the appropriate health facilities to provide them.
Mrs Mary Azika, a Midwife at the Bolgatanga Municipal Health Directorate, gave data on trends in use of family planning and said unmet needs have consistently popped up in the search for family planning services even though users fail to follow in lieu of choice of family planning methods.
She advised the service providers not to be judgmental, especially against young people who visit them for service.
Mrs Azika looked at qualities of counselling and urged them to be non-judgmental, be empathic and compassionate, show respect and remain good listeners to be able to do effective counselling.
GNA