Dr Owen Kaluwa with a copy of the report
Ghana has made major progress in all aspects of the health sector, a report by the University of Ghana, School of Public Health has said.
This
follows a comprehensive review of the country’s health status using the six
building blocks of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The
building blocks include service delivery, health financing, health workforce,
medical supplies/equipment (including health commodities and vaccines),
management information system and leadership and governance.
The
report titled, ‘State of the Nation’s Health’ gave the country a high score in
its health infrastructure.
It said
that the improvement in the country’s health infrastructure has positively
influenced health indicators, including health mortality reduction, HIV
prevalence and malaria case fatality rates.
The
country has also recorded an increase in domestic health financing and the number
of workforce in health facilities.
“Over
the past 15 years, the health workforce (all cadres of health workers) in Ghana
has increased dramatically from 28,662 in 1990 to 94,696 in 2015.
The
doctor to patient ratio has improved from 1:10,431 in 2012 to 1:8,840 people in
2015,” the report said.
It,
however, said challenges including increasing non-communicable diseases and
periodic outbreaks of communicable diseases must be addressed.
It also
touched on the influx of counterfeit medicines in the country’s pharmaceutical
market and called on government to conduct periodical phrmacovigilance studies
to be able to regulate the market effectively.
Dr.
Owen Kaluwa, Country Director of WHO, who officially launched the report, said the
‘State of the Nation’s Health’ provides the state of key health programmes and makes
recommendations for accelerated growth.
“It
takes into account the overall economic situation in the country and the
environment in which health is offered and thus situates the proposed
recommendations on the practical realities of the country,” he added.
Provost
of the College of Health Science, Rev Professor Patrick Ayeh-Kumi, said despite
the remarkable improvements, managers of the nation’s health system have a huge
responsibility of improving performance across the six blocks.
“This,
therefore, calls for integrated multi-sectoral approach which should emphasis
the agenda of health-in-all polices,” he added.
Professor Richard Adanu, Dean of the School of Public Health, said the report will help students, researchers, teachers and policy makers, who want to obtain information about health service delivery in the country.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
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