Ajumako (C/R), March 18, GNA - A five-day in-service training workshop for 90 Community-Based Agents (CBA) of the Ministry of Health (MOH) is underway at the Ajumako District Hospital.

Participants were drawn from the 163 communities in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District of the Central Region and sponsored by the Ghana Health Service (GHS), with public health nurses and disease control officers from the Ministry of Health (MOH) coming as resource persons. Madam Doris Ahelegbe, Ajumako District Director of Health Services, said participants would be taken through health education at the community level, dangers, signs, symptoms and treatment of some common diseases like malaria and diarrhoea, how to detect the outbreak of epidemic diseases and making referral cases to the medical officer. Participants would also be required to submit periodic and monthly reports.

Madam Ahelegbe said the District Health Directorate has no means of transport and that nurses on out-reach programmes relied on chartered taxis which were very expensive.

She appealed to the government, GHS, MOH, individuals and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to come to the aid of the hospital. Dr Albert Bow, District Medical Officer, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said the new district hospital under construction had come to a halt for over a year now.

He said the district hospital had no records on the said contract and could not trace the contractor. He was of the opinion that the GHS head quarters would do all within its powers to bring the contractor back to work. 18 March 10