By Miriam Oparebea, GNA
Tema, June 02, GNA- Dr Esther Priscilla Biamah Danquah, the Kpone-Katamanso Municipal Health Director, has called for multi-stakeholder partnerships to improve quality healthcare delivery, combat preventable diseases, and address critical health infrastructure deficits within the municipality.
Dr Danquah, speaking at a stakeholder engagement forum, emphasised that achieving a healthier municipality required collective effort rather than reliance solely on the local assembly or central government.
“We all need to collaborate to enhance the health of the municipality,” she said, adding that sanitation issues were not only for the assembly or the government but rather for all stakeholders.
Highlighting the demographic challenges facing the health sector, she noted that the municipality remained one of the most populous districts in the Greater Accra Region.
She noted that according to the 2026 population projections, the municipality had a male population of 231,000+ and a female population exceeding 243,000, with the under-five population standing at 88,000, with infants under one year accounting for 19,000.
Despite this massive population, the directorate lamented the absence of a major municipal hospital to handle complex medical cases.
“We are the most populous district in Greater Accra, yet, we don’t have a municipal Hospital; we are actually attaining a metro status, so, we should be having more than a 50-bed capacity Hospital, but, we don’t have that in the municipality,” she explained.
The health Director revealed that the current health infrastructure relied on nine public health facilities, including two Polyclinics, two Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds, a Clinic for the military, and one Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention Studies, alongside 65 private health facilities.
She expressed deep concern over the rising cases of malaria in the municipality, despite the assembly being designated as one of the 21 districts across the country undergoing malaria elimination monitoring, adding that a recent monitoring exercise revealed that many residents continue to contract malaria due to poor sanitation and choked drains.
”Yesterday, we went to Kokompe for monitoring, and over there, they were complaining that they were coming down with malaria because of the sanitation problems,” she said, stressing that “it is not for the assembly alone to handle sanitation issues. It is for you and me.”
She stressed that if “our gutters in front of our houses are choked and the rains are coming, there will be a flood; mosquitoes will settle on them, and they will start biting us.”
On other health issues, she highlighted an increase in food-borne disease outbreaks within the municipality’s free zone enclave over the past few years, revealing that the directorate had to intervene in several instances where corporate staff suffered severe diarrhoea and vomiting due to contaminated food provided at workplaces, citing a severe fatal case that recently occurred in the Oki district.
On maternal and child health, the director raised concerns about late antenatal clinic attendance among pregnant women, a trend that often leads to severe anaemia before delivery.
She also raised a serious alarm over a rise in teenage pregnancy, which has gone up by more than five per cent compared to last year.
She pointed out that junior high school (JHS) graduates who are currently awaiting their exam results are mostly at risk of adolescent pregnancy and therefore urged religious leaders and parents to sensitise their children against teenage pregnancies.
The health director further lamented operational disruptions caused by erratic electricity supply across the district’s health centres and polyclinics, calling on corporate bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and traditional leaders to support the health sector.
She indicated that to save lives, protect health workers from environmental hazards, and solve the water and power crises affecting the municipality, the health directorate could not work alone; therefore, the need for immediate, structured support from utility providers, environmental agencies, and the entire community.
GNA
Edited by Laudia Anyorkor Nunoo/Linda Asante Agyei