Piisi (U/W), April 28, GNA - Eight women died through complications of pregnancy and childbirth in the Wa Municipality last year, Mrs Beatrice Kunfah, the Municipal Director of Health Service, has said. She mentioned the refusal by some women to visit health facilities to receive antenatal care and skilled delivery as well as engaging in unsafe abortions as the major factors causing the death of pregnant women in the Municipality.

Mrs. Kunfah said this during the launch of a Community Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compound at Piisi in the Wa Municipality. She said the recent District Multi Indicator Cluster Survey in the Municipality revealed that only 69 per cent of pregnant women received antenatal care for at least four times before delivery with 53 percent of them passing through skilled delivery. The survey further indicated that only 17 percent of people used contraceptives and 32 percent of households used iodated salt while 71 percent of children sleep under insecticide treated nets. Mrs. Kunfah said alcohol consumption was on the increase and that high alcohol intake would only aggravate the already high poverty levels in the communities.

Mrs. Kunfah thanked UNICEF for their support in constructing, furnishing and equipping the facility in the community, adding that it would lesson the burden of traveling to Wa to access health care. Mr. Duogu Yakubu, the Wa Municipal Chief Executive, commended the Ghana Health Service for initiating the CHPS concept and urged them to continue to educate people to appreciate the benefits it brought to them. He said the Wa Municipal Assembly had over the years made health care delivery a number one development priority and as a result the Assembly had supported the construction of a number of CHPS compounds in the Municipality.

Mr Yakubu said the Assembly was supporting the Municipal Health Directorate to extend water and electricity to the new CHPS compounds at Kambali, Dobile market square and the community centre. One motor bike and three bicycles were donated by UNICEF and JICA respectively to support the running of the facility.