Dr Winfred Ofosu, Eastern Regional Director of Health says the unwillingness of staff to accept postings to some districts in the Region is affecting accessible and timely healthcare delivery.
He noted that the worst affected areas where health staff refused postings to were the Kwahu Afram Plains North and South districts, adding that, “the situation is dire and currently, there is no medical officer at the Presbyterian hospital at Donkorkrom”.
The Donkorkrom Presbyterian Hospital is a 177-bed capacity facility, which serves as the District Hospital for both Kwahu Afram Plains North and South and serves also as the main referral centre in the entire Afram Plains area.
Dr Ofosu, who made the disclosure at the Regional 2021 annual health performance review meeting in Koforidua, indicated that many staff preferred to work at districts bordering the greater Accra region such as the Nsawam-Adoagyri district.
Other districts also of high preference are the Akuapem North and South, New Juaben North and South, Suhum and lately the Abuakwa South districts, resulting in maldistribution and inequitable distribution of staff.
“We are struggling to have a reasonable number of doctors and other critical staff even in closer places such as Begoro Hospital in Fanteakwa North and Asesewa Hospital in Upper-Manya Krobo District,” he said.
Another challenging area in healthcare delivery is some intra-district quality roads resulting in difficulties in transferring referred patients for critical and emergency care.
The Regional Director called on the Municipal and District Assemblies particularly, the underserved districts to prioritise the provision of basic infrastructure such as accommodation and social amenities to attract manpower to those areas.
The meeting was on the theme “Building Resilient Health Systems for Maternal and Newborn Care: The Role of Stakeholders” and was attended by District Directors and District Health Management Teams (DHMTs) as well as key health staff across the region to take stock of the past year and make projections.
The Regional Director announced that in spite of the challenges, the Region made strides in some key priority areas including maternal health, family planning acceptor rate, newborn care, vaccinations, and Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV.
In the area of maternal health, the institutional mortality ratio declined from 146.1 in 2020 to 112.1 deaths in 2021 per 100,000 live births, family planning acceptor rate increased from 24% to 29.4% whiles institutional neonatal mortality declined from 8.2 deaths to 6.7 deaths. per 100,000 live births in the period under review.
PMTCT of HIV testing also increased from 67% in 2020 to 94% in 2021 and on disease prevention and control vaccination (Penta 3) coverage went up from 96% in 2020 to109.7% in 2021.
