Madam Maniza Zaman, the Deputy Director of the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), has called for redoubling of efforts to tackle the inequity in health care delivery in the country.
She said despite the positive developments in terms of building especially more community health care facilities, there was still a huge gap as far as access to health care was concerned
Madam Zaman was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Tamale after touring some projects being undertaken by UNICEF Ghana in the Tolon and Kumbungu districts of the Northern Region.
She toured the Nyankpala Health Center where UNICEF is partnering with the Ghana Health Service to implement the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition programme under which Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) is used to treat malnutrition amongst children by feeding them (children) on the RUTF.
She also inspected a water facility serving Nyankpala. She visited the Kumbungu District and held discussions with the authorities on district-wide sanitation programming as well as Namdu-Gbulahi, an open defecation free community in the District.
Madam Zaman said Ghana was regarded as a model in terms of progress involving development indicators and called for sustained efforts to bridge the gap in access to health care especially in northern Ghana.
She expressed confidence that “The will is there and working with development partners can improve the situation.”
On education, Mad Zaman said there was the need to work hard to improve the statistics regarding enrolment and the number of pupils passing basic school examinations.
She also spoke about sanitation and commended some communities in the Kumbungu District for adopting the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) concept by constructing their own toilets thereby avoiding open defecation, a source of diarrhoea and cholera.
Madam Zaman urged other communities in the country to emulate the example of the Kumbungu District by adopting CLTS to put an end to open defecation.
Alhaji Iddi Manzah Mahama, the District Chief Executive for Kumbungu, said the district was putting in place measures to improve the standard of education.
He expressed gratitude to UNICEF for its collaboration with the District to improve the welfare of children.
Source: GNA
