Layiri, (UW/R), March 2, GNA – The residents of Lanyiri in the Wa West District have indicated that lack of good roads linking the community to other communities in the district is a bane to their access to timely healthcare services.
They said their plight is worsened during the rainy season as pregnant women are unable to access skilled delivery while children and the aged also face a lot of challenges accessing other communities for healthcare facilities.
Madam Clementia Sei, a resident of the community recounted to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview that there was a health facility at Polee, which was relatively closer to the Lanyiri community, but due to the lack of access route to that community, they were unable to go there for health services, especially in the rainy season.
“We have a clinic here but when you are sick, how to get there early for treatment is difficult because of the poor road network. We the women are suffering here.
“We have been delivering in the bush and the houses. There was a time my sister was to deliver but there is a river here, which we could not cross to the clinic at Polee. So she delivered in the bush on our way going there”, she explained.
Mr James Dayi, another resident of the community told the GNA that they sometimes had to carry a sick person or pregnant woman to the health facility due to the lack of roads for a tricycle to access, saying “We have roads in the dry season but we don’t have roads in the rainy season”.
“When a woman is to deliver, the roads to the clinic are so bad we have to carry her, some hold the legs, others hold the waist and others hold the head before we can send her to the clinic.
“When she delivers, we bring her back and now think of how to send the mother and the baby to the clinic later. Our wives are delivering in the bush because we don’t have roads”, he explained.
Another resident of the community, Joseph Sei, told the GNA that the lack of road network did not only affect their access to healthcare services but also their economic activities, including farming.
He said they were unable to transport farm input such as fertilizer from the market centre to the community as well as to cart their farm produce to the market centres to sell during the rainy season.
The chiefs and people of the community, therefore, appealed to the Wa West District Assembly to work on the roads for the community to help alleviate their plight.
Meanwhile, Mr Seidu Kasim, the Assembly Member for the area, confirmed the lack of access roads to the community and said he was working to get the assembly and the government improve the roads to the community.
GNA