Mr Joseph Amevuvor, Krachi East Municipal Health Promotion Officer, has said health issues in the various communities had improved over the years because of the critical role played by community health management committees (MCs).

He said CHMCs continued to play a vital role in the delivery of quality health services by serving as liaisons between community members and the healthcare providers to ensure effective service delivery.

Mr Amevuvor, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after a sensitisation workshop for CHMC members, said the training was to upgrade their knowledge and improve performance “because the people pay heed to what they say.”

The participants were drawn from five communities in the Krachi East Municipality at Dambai comprising Ayeremu, Adumadum, Njare, Motorway and Matamanu.

Mr Amevuvor said the Municipal Health Directorate also visited the communities to engage members through durbars on what the CHMCs shared with them, adding; “It is a collaborative work.”

The workshop also created awareness on maternal and child health, nutrition and malaria prevention on which participants prepared action plans for the sensitisation activities in their catchment areas.

Mr Richard Anane Adortse, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, People for Health (P4H), said the sensitisation was to help sustain the work undertaken in the communities when the project ended in 2021.

“We recognise the CHMCs as a structure that will be there to continue the education of their community members on these critical health areas,” he added.

He said the P4H would update the communities on relevant information as well as support them to develop an action plan for educating members through community radio.

Some participants told the GNA that the training had made a great impact on their roles and pledged to propagate the outcomes to their clients.

Madam Grace Dzitse, a Traditional Birth Attendant from the Motorway Community, said her education to pregnant women on healthy practices had had a great impact on them, as they were willing to learn more to improve on their health.

She said the Community-based Health Planning and Service (CHPS) compound was without a maternity ward and stationed midwife, making service delivery difficult, and called for the issues to be addressed.

Mr Samuel Ankuyi, a Community Health Nurse at Ayeremu, said the CHMC had been supportive to ensure quality healthcare delivery.

He noted that the Committee also served as a platform to communicate health promotion activities adding that “they have been helping us a lot.”

The P4H is a USAID-funded project (2016 to 2021), which is implemented by a consortium led by SEND Ghana, including Penplusbytes and the Ghana News Agency.

The three institutions offer a comprehensive and innovative approach to ensuring that the project achieved the intended results.

It is implemented in 20 selected districts from the Northern, Eastern, Volta, Oti and Greater Accra regions.