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The Eastern Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has held its 2024 annual performance review to assess progress and strategize for enhancing maternal health services within the region.
The review was on the theme “Improving Maternal Health Outcomes Through System Strengthening and Accountability at All Levels of Health Care Delivery.” The two-day performance review meeting brought together Hospital Medical Superintendents, District Health Directors, staff from the Health Service, and Heads of Departments in Koforidua.
Participants discussed best practices and effective strategies to improve health outcomes. The collaborative efforts shown during the meeting underline the commitment of the GHS to prioritize maternal health and reinforce accountability in the delivery of health care services across the region.
In her keynote address, Mrs. Rita Akosua Adjei Awatey, Eastern Regional Minister, said the review ought to be done repeatedly to give opportunities for employees and managements to reflect on achievements, address challenges, and set goals for the future. She said maternal death was a concern for everyone, considering the debilitating effect on the immediate family, community, and the country at large.
She said all efforts must be put in place to nip it in the bud and expressed the hope that the meeting would come up with a plan for improve outcomes. Dr Winfred Ofosu, Eastern Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, said the overall performance over the past few years had shown a continuous improvement, and on average the region performed better in 2024 with a score of 3.9 out of 5 compared to 3.6 in 2023.
He said on some specific indicators, access to Outpatient Department services increased from 1.30 per capita to 1.43 per capita; incidence of both hypertension and diabetes increased slightly in 2024, and childhood immunization coverage declined slightly from 109.7% in 2023 to 95.8% in 2024. Additionally, institutional all-cause mortality increased from 24.7% in 2023 to 27.9% in 2024; maternal mortality ratio declined from 112 in 2023 to 102 per 100,000 live births in 2024.
Tuberculosis case notification increased from 51.1% in 2023 to 82.0% in 2024 and tracer medicine availability at the Regional Medical Stores increased from 81% to 83.30%. The overall trend of performance from 2020 showed positive improvement despite the disruptions from COVID-19 Pandemic, he said.
“The thrust of the health sector is to achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2030. To this end we are working hard to increase access to quality health services based on the health needs of the people without financial constraints at the point of care,” Dr Ofosu noted.
He said in furtherance of this goal, the theme for the review meeting held the view that improving maternal outcomes required multi-sectoral actions including families and communities and that strengthening maternal health system will strengthen service delivery for all. He noted that there were several factors outside the remit of the health service that continued to impact negatively on maternal health outcomes.
These include nutrition, road infrastructure, referral transportation, blood availability, among others. “In recognition of the importance of health system strengthening to better health outcomes, the Ghana Health Service is currently implementing Networks of Practice (NoP) to strengthen the sub-district system, and Eastern Region has 66 functional NoP that are poised to scale up to all sub-districts in the region,” he said.
The NoP is an initiative that reinforces the commitment of the health sector to identify approaches to strengthen health service delivery, especially in the underserved communities and sub-district level.
Source: GNA
