HIHG MATERNAL DEATHS WORRY WR HEALTH DIRECTORATE (PAGE 22, FEB 27, 2010)

ONE of the major areas of concern for the Western Regional Directorate of Health Services has been the high maternal deaths, poor death auditing and high still births, which the region recorded last year.
However, the region exposed the unfortunate situation to many organisations and the need for concerted efforts to reduce these deaths at the PROMISE conference and later at the Maternal and New-born Conference, which were held in March, last year.
The Regional Director of Health Services, Dr (Mrs) Linda Vanotoo, announced this at the opening of a four-day regional annual performance review meeting of the health sector in Takoradi.
It was on the theme: “Linking clinical care and public health for effective service delivery”.
Dr Vanotoo said the conference brought out many gaps in maternal and new-born service delivery and also served as a tool for improvement in service delivery in all districts.
“Although there may be other reasons such as the presence of obstetrician and gynaecology specialists at the Effia Nkwanta Regional and Takoradi Hospitals, we believe that the PROMISE conference contributed to the appreciable reduction in maternal deaths in 2009,” she stated.
Dr Vanotoo said the regional medical stores which were the backbone of service delivery also saw some changes.
She said the pharmacist in charge of the stores was appointed as the acting manager to oversee the running of the whole area and be the liaison between the regional medical stores and the regional health directorate.
Dr Vanotoo said even though the National Health Insurance Scheme had removed financial barriers from the clients, it was now creating difficulties for service providers because of the long delay in reimbursement for services rendered.
“The health facilities owe the regional medical stores huge sums of money, while the regional health directorate also owes the central medical stores and supplies a huge amount of money,” she emphasised.
Dr Vanotoo said, “It is our hope that these arrears will be paid as soon as possible to ensure the smooth running of our services.”
Touching on clinical care, she said the region rented accommodation for medical officers/specialists and was able to attract eight junior doctors and six specialists.
That, she said, had improved the staff situation at the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital.
She said the region was able to post medical officers to the district hospitals to replace those who had left for further studies.
Dr Vanotoo said 15 people had so far benefited from prosthesis at the Limb Fitting Centre at Supomu Dunkwa in the Western Region.
She mentioned some of the challenges facing directorate during the year under review was the request of many staff to further their education at the same time but as the directorate could not grant all applications, some staff went away without proper authorisation.
Dr Vanatoo said a sizeable number of staff also requested for transfers based on family problems which were not in the interest of the work, as well as late submission of reports from some health facilities.
She added that weak performance in some facilities, non-use of data for action due to poor data collection, as well as adequate funds for regular monitoring and supervision, were some of the challenges.