The Wassa East District Assembly has constructed a new Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compound for the Wassa Dwenase community at the cost of GHc171,744.54 to improve health delivery in the area.

The project, which was funded with the District Assembly’s Common Fund and completed in six months, has an Out- Patient- Department (OPD), as well as consulting and dressing rooms.

Dwenase, a farming community, is noted for its rubber plantations, cultivation of cocoa, oil palm, plantain and cassava, and gets its medical attention at Agona Abirem in Central Region, about an hour’s journey from the village. Presently, the compound is housed in rented premises.

At the inauguration of the project here last Thursday, the regent of Wassa Dwenase, Nana Kweku Yeboah II, was happy that the CHPS facility would help reduce most of the health burdens on the people.

Explaining the functions of CHPS compound, the District Director of Health Services, Dr. Kofi Sutherland, told the people that, the compounds were not clinics to handle serious cases and emergencies.

Rather, he said, the CHPS compounds functions involved 75 per cent preventive measures including visits to communities and homes to educate people on health issues such as the use of treated mosquito nets, and prevention of malaria, polio and measles.

He said the community nurses, also worked with two volunteers in each community stressing that, “if you say the CHPS is a clinic, the health workers will be overwhelmed by events and this can lead to deaths.”

Dr Sutherland urged the community to patronise the services of the compound, and advised the Dwenase community to support the CHPS staff with other communal contributions to motivate them to stay and work for their welfare.