The lack of qualified health personnel in health institutions in the Central Region has been the bane of inadequate health care delivery in that region.

The region needs 40 more medical doctors in addition to the 40 who are already at post and more than a 1,000 registered nurses to beef up the existing 443 nurses who are taking care of a region with an average population of 1.5 million people to make the desired impact on health care delivery.

The region is well noted for its health problems, including high maternal and infant mortality rate, teenage pregnancies, communicable diseases and the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

Dr. Elias Sory , Regional Director of Health Services made this known to newsmen after addressing the regional annual review conference on 2002 programme of work at Ankaful on Wednesday.

He revealed that lack of other qualified medical personnel including laboratory technicians, pathologists and other technical men to operate hospital equipment such as a mammograph, at key departments of the Central Regional hospital, is an issue of great concern to his administration.

Dr Sory said his administration sometimes buys the off-days of nurses in order to ensure that there are always nurses at posts and in most instances " they are overworked and stretched beyond their limits" and asked how long this could continue.

He expressed concern about the situation at the Assin Fosu hospital where bed occupant is always 100 percent but has only one medical doctor with the District Director of Health Services assisting and the Twifo Praso Hospital which, he said, needed 3 doctors to man it.

The health administrator, underscored the importance of qualified personnel to excellent health care delivery in the country and called for better incentives for them to stay at posts rather than to seek greener pastures elsewhere.

On diseases, he said malaria still tops the lists followed by non-communicable diseases, including hypertension and diabetes with the latter recording about 400 cases in clinics around Cape Coast alone last year.

He again mentioned maternal mortality rate as being high and stressed that his outfit would post the 237 community nurses in the region to the remotest areas in the region to bring health care delivery to all.

Despite all these he said, his administration was able to chalk some success including the measles immunisation programme, which achieved 99 percent coverage.