By Albert Allotey
Accra, Feb. 17, GNA – The Ghana NCD Alliance has launched a Community-Led Monitoring Report on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), urging policymakers to consider integrating these diseases into the Primary Health Care model.
The report was compiled under a Community Scorecard project carried out by the Alliance, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, and the Ghana Health Service in three district health facilities.
The facilities are in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions – Accra Metro, Ga South and Adansi Akrofoum districts.
The project goal is to ensure the involvement of people living with NCDs and the participation of community members to identify the gaps in health services by using the scorecard initiative and to share the findings with the Ministry of Health, National NCDs Steering Committee, and civil society organisations.
The Report, which was launched by Nanahemaa Adjoa Awindor, a Development Queen of Afigya- Kwabre District in the Ashanti Region, urged the MoH to consider an integrated approach in scaling up the scorecards to ensure that the diseases are tackled from the community level.
“The Ministry and its agencies should embrace civil society and people living with the diseases in the roll-out of health interventions and strategies to help scale up cost-effective interventions while providing adequate funds for Community Health Management Committees to tackle their action plans,” it said.
That would go a long way to reducing the negative impact of NCDs in rural areas and strengthen community ownership and participation in healthcare delivery.
The Report said the MoH and the National Health Insurance Authority must devise a system that would track stock of medicines in the CHPS compounds to reduce the increasing out-of-pocket payments of drugs, especially at the rural and remote communities.
“Wellness clinics must offer free diabetes screening as part of their essential services while mental and psychological health seekers must be treated with the utmost consideration and respect, especially when seeking such services in mainstream health facilities.”
It recommended that the Ghana Health Service should consider intensifying the supply of toiletries and disposables to health facilities to avoid patients paying for washrooms and other minor services.
Community health workers in CHPS compounds must re-embrace the first-aid concept of the CHPS initiative to avoid complications in health conditions.
“CHPS compounds in communities surrounded by health centres and polyclinics should be sealed up to deliver other services beyond the assigned CHPS services to boost patronage and reduce the number of patients at the district and regional hospitals.”
It said there should be an intentional allocation of funds to support mental health services at all levels taking cognizance that mental health illnesses were invisible conditions that threaten the sufferer as well as those around them.
NCDs in Ghana account for 94,400 deaths annually, representing 43 per cent, and is gradually gaining decision-makers attention.
This has necessitated a call by the President, through the launch of the NCD Policy, Strategy, and Compact, to expedite all efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 3.4.)
Nanahemaa Awindor urged all stakeholders to collaborate to relentlessly create awareness on the factors that contributed to NCDs to help reduce their prevalence if not completely eradicating them.
GNA