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334 health workers in UWR receive incentive packages
Dr Punguyire speaking at the meeting
Incentive packages to entice staff of the Ghana Health Service to accept postings to deprived areas have been instituted in the Upper West Region (UWR).
In all, a total of 334 staff serving in deprived communities in the UWR have been given study leave to pursue further training in the next academic year.
In addition to this package, some 508 clinical staff serving in various capacities in deprived areas were promoted last year to the next grade ahead of their colleagues in the cities.
The Regional Director for Health Services in the region, Dr. Damien Punguyire, speaking at the annual review meeting of the Regional Health Directorate at Wa, said the incentive systems were to attract more staff to rural areas.
The meeting brought together stakeholders to deliberate on the successes and challenges of the service in the region.
Dr. Punguyire projected that the difficulty in getting people to accept postings to deprived areas would be eliminated if staff were motivated with such incentives to help improve nurse and doctor to population ratios, respectively.
With the posting of 20 more doctors to the region, he noted that the doctor-to-patient ratio stood at one doctor to 9,897 patients and said the increase would boost healthcare delivery in the region.
Touching on the theme for the meeting, the director was upbeat about the number of pregnant women who attended antenatal care and said it had led to a decline in maternal mortalities from 28 in 2021 to 16 last year.
He mentioned that a lot more people were becoming aware of their Human Immuno Virus (HIV) status, and 88 per cent of them were undergoing antiretroviral therapy.
He said data from the region suggested that access to health services is not a problem, but the quality of the services is; hence, the focus should be on access to quality health services.
The Regional Minister, Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih, said that despite the remarkable strides made in reducing maternal and infant mortality, it was sad to know that about 300,000 women the world over died as a result of pregnancy-related problems.
He called for a responsive healthcare delivery system to augment the government’s efforts at providing the necessary human resources and infrastructure to eliminate maternal mortalities.
From Lydia Darlington Fordjour, Wa