Provide adequate resources for PHC programme

Page 3, April 16, 2008
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
PANELLISTS at a symposium in Accra to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have called for adequate resources for the implementation of the country’s Primary Health Care (PHC) programme.
They said until that was done, the quest to achieve the laudable objectives of the PHC programme to ensure better health for Ghanaians would be a mirage.
The symposium was on the topic: “30 years of Primary Health Care — Its impact on the health of Ghanaians”.
Speaking on the evolution of PHC in Ghana, a lecturer at the School of Public Health, Professor Fred Wurapa, noted that the greatest weakness of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) was the lack of proper supervision of programmes.
He stated that there should be proper orientation of staff of the service to enable them to properly supervise programmes to achieve the desired results.
Prof Wurapa said the irony of the situation was that while the impression was created that the country had insufficient health staff, some hospitals were overstaffed.
He called for an equitable distribution of health staff throughout the country to ensure proper implementation of health policies and programmes for the benefit of the people.
Speaking on the PHC, with special reference to health sector reforms, the Greater Accra Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Irene Agyepong, said while a lot of successes had been chalked up in the rural areas, there was the need to do more to ensure proper health for the urban poor.
The Deputy Director-General of GHS, Dr George Amofa, who spoke on the contribution of PHC to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), noted that proper health could not be achieved through the provision of doctors, nurses and drugs.
He, therefore, called for a multi-sectoral approach towards solving the country’s health problems.
Earlier, in his welcoming address, the WHO Representative in Ghana, Dr Joaquim Saweka, had stated that since PHC became a core policy of the organisation, international support for the values of primary health had remained strong.
He said preliminary results of a major review suggested that many in the global health community considered PHC orientation to be crucial for equitable progress in health.
Dr Saweka said efforts were being made by many countries in Africa to provide integrated health services that were accessible, affordable and of good quality, while generating the necessary human and physical resources to make that possible.
He, however, noted that despite those efforts, health systems had been hampered by poverty, political instability, poor economic performance, heavy disease burden, lack of qualified and experienced health workers, poor health infrastructure, low access to quality essential health technologies and weak stewardship.
He said the WHO was reinforcing its technical collaboration and support to countries through their governments, the private sector and civil society that were engaged in health work.