Bawku (UE) Feb.8, GNA -In line with efforts to improve on quality health delivery in the Bawku municipality and its environs, the Quality Health Center (QHC) operating in the Bawku and Garu-Tempane districts has provided an Ultra-Modern health center at a cost of GHc900.000.00 for the Bawku municipality and its environs to help promote the delivery of quality health services to the people in the area.

The facility which is made up four departments, is to provide services including surgical, child health, medicine, obstetrics and Gyaenecology. It would in addition include services such as computerized tomography scan to help solve some of the complicated illnesses in the area.

Dr. Francis Asaana, Executive Chief Director for the Quality Health Center disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the weekend after a board of directors meeting in Bawku to discuss issues that would improve on the quality of health services to its clients.

Dr. Assana noted that health was the bedrock for the socio-economic development of the people in the area and that the center was putting in place measures to give the best of medical services to the area and beyond.

He said malaria was a major threat to child growth and increased maternal death in the area and that the center was collaborating with stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and development partners to fight the malaria epidemic in the area.

Dr. Asaana mentioned that the delay of payment of claims by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was a serious challenge on the part of health providers and called on government to expedite action on the move to enable the scheme to achieve its intended purpose.

He explained that service providers were forced to take loans from financial institutions and Banks with interest to serve clients of the scheme who were under them and that this was not benefiting them because when the scheme came to pay the claims it did not consider the interest the banks demanded from the service providers.

Dr. Asaana appealed to government to include private health providers in its budget to enable them to contribute to the health needs of the citizenry.