By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Oct. 30, GNA – Ms Delali Kumapley, the Research Uptake Country (Ghana) Champion for the Community-led Responsive and Effective Urban Health Systems (CHORUS) project, has called for the adoption of the Community Health Planning Service (CHPS) concept to address the health needs of urban populations.
Ms Kumapley said rapid urbanisation came with slums or low-income settlements, adding that in such neighbourhoods, residents lacked basic services like clean water, electricity, and sanitation, making them prone to ill-health and diseases.
She said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in commemoration of World Cities Day, an initiative by the United Nations-Habitat (UN-Habitat), which is celebrated on October 31, with this year’s theme being, “Youth Climate Changemakers: Catalysing Local Action for Urban Sustainability.”
She noted that “urban poor communities in Ghana, compared to those living in the rural setting, experience the double burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and communicable diseases (CDs), in addition to other health effects of overcrowding.”
She revealed that a lot of residents in urban slums, when seeking healthcare, depend on private and unregulated providers, adding that their low socio-economic status, poor education, and lack of basic infrastructure make it vital for primary healthcare to be provided for them at the household and community levels.
Ms Kumapley indicated that CHPS was Ghana’s flagship initiative for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and a means of providing primary health care to citizens, adding that under it, fully trained Community Health Officers (CHOs) are posted to communities to deliver health services.
“The programme has been successful in helping rural communities meet their health needs, and there is a need to adapt the concept to address the characteristic needs of the urban population. The CHPS programme faces different challenges in the urban setting, including the existing heterogeneous community structures, and the densely populated, as well as the poor awareness and lack of confidence in the CHPS programme and the health services it provides.”
She said to ensure a sustainable provision of health care services and address the health needs of the urban poor, research was very important, adding that the CHORUS project, hosted by the School of Public Health at the University of Ghana, since 2020, has been ascertaining through research how to link communities, local government, and health workers to provide and support health programmes, and services at the household and community level in urban areas.
She added that the multi-country project funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) also aimed at addressing the challenges of operating CHPS in the different urban settings, using Ashaiman and Madina municipalities.
She noted that the project’s overall objective is to co-produce with stakeholders, implement, and evaluate a package of interventions to enable sustainable provision of life cycle health promotion and prevention programmes and services at the household and community level for urban poor populations in Ghana.
According to her, in the last four years, the CHORUS project in Ghana had completed its needs assessment and, together with relevant stakeholders, has produced a package of interventions covering the areas of increasing awareness of the services provided by CHPS and increasing coverage by extending home visits to include businesses, marketplaces, and worship centres.
“It is also empowering CHOs to deliver life-cycle health promotion and prevention services in these urban poor areas by strengthening their capacity to deal with health issues peculiar to the urban population.”
She indicated that with the CHPS policy being Ghana’s national strategy for the implementation of primary health care, the project ensured that the Municipal Health Directors of Ashaiman and Madina were core members of the research team facilitating the project’s work in municipalities.
According to her, to ensure interventions are delivered and contextually appropriate for each district, Community Advisory Groups (CAG), which are voluntary groups of a diverse range of relevant stakeholders, were formed, adding that the research team works with a Technical Working Group (TWG) that involves key personnel from the Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Health.
“As the world marks World Cities Day today and with the theme focusing on the youth’s involvement in creating a better urban future, it is worth mentioning that the CHORUS Ghana Project, in its research and intervention design, has deliberately sought the opinions of the youth.”
She noted that the project had equipped the youth to advocate for a better urban future for themselves and others, adding that, the continuous and ongoing engagement between researchers, communities, especially the youth, and the technical working group provided an opportunity to debunk myths surrounding the CHPS programme and its activities.
These interactions have also resulted in changes in knowledge about CHPS, thereby improving attitudes towards the programme, especially in urban poor communities, and will go a long way to improving the health and well-being of residents in these settings while reducing the double burden of non-communicable diseases and communicable diseases and other health effects of overcrowding.”
GNA