Accra, Nov. 23, GNA - The Ministry of Health and its development partners on Friday signed the aide memoire signifying the pinnacle of the health summit represented in the discussions, conclusions and agreements arrived at during the summit.

Dr. Gladys Ashitey, Deputy Minister of Health said the aid memoire, which had been drafted in consultation with the development partners reiterated the priorities for the health sector for 2008 and included the scaling up of high impact and Rapid Delivery Programme for achieving the Millennium Development Goals four and five. Other projects to be undertaken involves addressing risk factors to ill health by scaling the regenerative health and nutrition programme in addition to expanding the value chain of health creation by introducing a structured programme for health screening. Dr. Ashitey said the health sector, in 2008 would look at consolidating the gains under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and refining mechanisms for identifying poor people who could not afford the required premium and yet not covered by NHIS exemption package.

She said promoting intersectoral collaboration was important in order to derive the synergies from the investment the sector was making in service delivery and called on all agencies and staff of the ministry to commit to its full implementation.

Dr. Ashitey commended the planning committee and the development partners for making the summit a success and urged them to honour their commitments to the sector. " This is the year of action for the ministry and l look forward to working with you to make Ghana a better place for all of us."

Ms. Lidi Remmelzwaal, Ambassador of the Netherlands, who represented the development partners, said this year's health summit had been different, illustrating the general consensus on most of the issues and the steps to be taken to achieve them. She noted that it would have been more collaborative if the other important ministries such as the Finance and Economic Planning, Women and Children's Affairs, Local Government, Rural Development and Environment were involved.

She said the Ghana AIDS Commission, the National Population Council and the National Development Planning Commission must work to complement each other in 2008 in which the Demographic Health Survey would be held to measure results and to assess progress towards set target.

Ms. Remmelzwaal called for the strengthening of the collaboration between the partners, adding that, they would build on the targets to achieve the millennium development goals. She said 2007 had been a year of much strategic planning and they were looking forward to the finalisation of the programme of work for 2008 before the end of the year. 23 Nov. 07