By Linda Naa Deide Aryeetey
Accra, Nov.18.GNA-The Ghana Health ServicE（GHS) Ministry of Health （MOH） and Ensign Global College are discussing best ways to integrate Health 2 Go, a community healthcare concept into the Network of Practice and other existing healthcare interventions across the country.
This comes after the three institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) earlier this year to work together to improve healthcare delivery, especially in remote areas.
The President, Ensign Global Collage, Prof Stephen Alder, said the partnership would address challenges like cost, lack of local infrastructure, cultural attitudes, misinformation, discrimination, insufficient awareness of health issues in remote communities.
Health2Go was initiated by the Ensign Global Collage and its partners to solve access to healthcare challenges by bringing high-quality health services into communities where people live.
While the Networks of Practice （NoP） is a GHS initiative that aims to enhance access to quality essential health care by 2030 through improved coordination and resource sharing among health providers within specific geographical areas, to address challenges like poor referral systems and inadequate provider-payment mechanisms.
Prof Alder said the health 2 Go project has been successfully piloted for eight years in the Kpong sub-District of the Lower Manya Krobo District in the Eastern Region of Ghana, and for over six years in the Barekese Sub-district of the Atwima Nwabiagya North District in the Ashanti Region with similar success stories, with evidence of its ability to reduce under five mortalities in hard-to-reach communities by two-thirds.
He said Health 2 Go makes it possible for Community Based Agents （CBA） or health workers to go into homes and work with citizens on health practices, helping them to improve their health.
It also creates a platform for the CBA to attend to children under five and treat simple illness that can be manage with the support of the clinical system, it also links the CBAs to the community and to the health facilities.
“Health 2Go relieves the burden on the health system, for instance, if we are able to treat complicated cases of malaria in the community, it allows other health facilities in the district, regional or national level to handle more complicated system,” he said.
Prof Alder said Health 2 Go has so far invested over a hundred million dollars into healthcare to reduce the worries of mother in accessing healthcare.
“We are pleased to hear from our partners that the health 2 Go approach is effective and should be scaled up to even the hard-to-reach communities in the country to provide essential health services to children under five, while addressing the broader community needs,”
He said Health 2 Go recognises the need to fit into existing health interventions across the country like the CHIPS program and the Network of Practise initiative that brings together facilities of all types to ensure that care in provided at the appropriate facility in a community in an appropriate way.
Dr Alberta Briritwum-Nyarko, Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division, GHS was the inculcating Health2Go into the NoP was a good initiative to speed up process to attaining Universal Health Coverage by 2030.
She said rooted in the Primary Health Care （PHC） strategy, the NoP focuses on comprehensive, patient-centred care for common health conditions.
Dr Biritwum- Nyarko said they are looking forward to scaling up the project to all communities in the country or at least 50 per cent of communities with access to sustainable resources.
GNA