TEENAGE PREGNANCY HIGH IN PRESTEA-HUNI VALLEY (PAGE 40)

TEENAGE pregnancy is on the ascendancy in the Prestea-Huni Valley District in the Western Region.
Between January and March, this year, 15 pregnant teenage girls whose ages range between 13 and 16, have been delivered of their babies at the Prestea Government Hospital.
A large number of teenage girls from the area are also pregnant.
Besides, defilement cases in the district are also very high, with a nine-year-old girl being one of the victims.
These came to light at a non-denominational church service for final-year students of various junior high schools (JHS) in Prestea before the beginning of this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The service was organised under the auspices of the Member of Parliament (MP) for Prestea Huni Valley, Mr Francis Kwasi Adu-Blay Koffie.
The Medical Director of the Prestea Government Hospital, Dr Mohammed Mbiniwaya, who disclosed these figures, attributed the increase in teenage pregnancy and defilement cases in the area to poverty.
He added that the heavy presence of illegal gold mining operators (galamsey) was also a contributory factor.
Dr Mbiniwaya said the nine-year-old girl who was defiled was given 50Gp by the culprit, who threatened to kill her if she told anybody about her ordeal.
According to Dr Mbiniwaya, when he examined the child, there was indication that she had been defiled a long time ago and wondered what the police were doing about such cases.
He, therefore, called on religious leaders and traditional rulers in the district to advise parents to live up to their responsibilities to avoid such situations.
Touching on environmental sanitation, Dr Mbiniwaya said typhoid fever and malarial diseases were on the increase as a result of poor sanitary conditions in the district, and that “Malaria and typhoid fever are now competing with each other”.
He said about 80 per cent of the people in the district did not have toilet facilities in their homes and solely depended on public facilities, stressing that the situation was a serious problem.
Dr Mbiniwaya stated that there had been indiscriminate dumping of refuse and littering, while food vendors were selling near toilets and silted gutters, adding that poor sanitation could cause medical problems.
The medical director said about 90 per cent of cases reported at the hospital were diarrhoea, and that when tested, three quarters of the cases proved to be typhoid.
Dr Mbiniwaya, therefore, challenged environmental health officers of the district assembly to ensure that all food vendors had thorough medical examination before they were allowed to sell food to the public, particularly schoolchildren.
The MP for Prestea-Huni Valley, Mr Adu-Blay Koffie, said the non-denominational service would be an annual event for the final-year students to motivate them to write the BECE.
He said he would assist the promotion of quality education in the district and would also support any brilliant, needy students in the district.
Mr Adu-Blay Koffie advised the students to be law-abiding and follow examination instructions.
The Prestea-Huni Valley District Co-ordinating Director, Alhaji Jacker Mohammed, announced that the district assembly would organise a mock examination for all final-year JHS students next year.
He said the assembly had sponsorship packages for brilliant, needy students in the district.
The MP stated that the academic standard in the district was very low and that there was the need to improve on it.