By Muniratu Akweley Issah, GNA
Accra, May 18, GNA – Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director General, Ghana Health Service (GHS), has urged mothers and caregivers to prioritise the wellbeing of children.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye said being conscious of the progress of their babies and adhering to the nutritional needs, vaccinations as well as the growth rate of their children were key, as it would ensure total protection and safeguard their future.
The Director General advised the mothers and caregivers when the GHS and partners toured the child Welfare Clinics at the Abokobi and Agbogba health and outreach Centres in the Ga East Municipality.
The monitoring formed part of activities to commemorate the African Vaccination Week, Child health promotion week and COVID-19 campaign week.
The first point visited was at Abokobi Health centre and Child Welfare Clinc (CWC) and later visited the Agbogba outreach centre, being operated within a Church premises, offering services such as immunization, weighing, education and counselling on nutrition and family planning, Covid-19 vaccination, and Births registration.
The Director General, who interacted with the health workers at the facilities, commended their efforts, encouraging them to improve their services.
He emphasised the need to intensify education and counselling on vaccination, nutrition, and family planning services to caregivers.
“It is important to check the growth rate of their children, checking to see if the child is doing well or not, educating them on the type of food to eat and when to eat is very critical.”
Briefing the media, Dr Kuma-Aboagye, indicated that it was necessary for the sector to monitor the progress of the CWC, and various services being offered to the people, hence identifying progress, challenges and the way forward was necessary.
He said by observation, the Municipality, which was densely populated, needed more outreach centres to beef up operations to serve the larger communities.
The team also visited Taifa Community, also within the Ga East municipality, where COVID-19 vaccines were being administered, as part of the COVID-19 vaccination week campaign.
“This is the usual campaign to achieve herd immunity. We set a target of 20.7 million to be fully vaccinated, which will ensure adequate protection for all,” he stated.
“So far, we have had about 57 per cent of the population fully vaccinated and 71 who have taken one shot only, which means that we still have a large population to cover and that is why we are also embarking on the campaign to capture everyone just as the routine vaccination on child welfare,” he added.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye disclosed that 40.1 per cent of the target had been achieved, within two days into the campaign, anticipating a surge among the public, getting to the latter part of the exercise, adding that if everything went well, the target would be exceeded and would help to achieve, herd immunity to ensure total protection for all citizenry.
Dr Frankline Asiedu Bekoe, Director of Public Health, GHS, also entreated the mothers and the public to adhere to the safety protocols while urging them to come out in their numbers to take the jabs, as the highly trusted measure of preventing the diseases.
He said the virus was still existent, hence need to accept the vaccines as well as adhering to the protocols.
The Director General was accompanied by Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, Director of Public Health, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achianu, Programme Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), and Dr Marion Okoh-Owusu, Director of Health Promotion.
The rest were Dr Michael Adjabeng, Surveillance Officer, World Health Organisation (WHO) Ghana, Dr Akosua Agyeiwaa Owusu-Sarpong, Greater Accra Regional Director of Health, and Dr Selorm Botwe, the Municipal Health Director, Ga East, among others.
GNA