A former Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Dr. Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira has projected that Ghana may not attain the World Health Organization (WHO) 2030 targets if national efforts to attain Universal Health Coverage (UHC) were not intensified.

He said presently, Ghana’s UHC performance was about 45 per cent which was not encouraging.

The former GHS director was speaking at the end of a three day National Health Research Dissemination Symposium (NHRDS) in Accra on Thursday.

The WHO 2030 targets entreat nations to, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years, with the aim to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1000 live births.

Dr Appiah-Denkyira said one out of ten Ghanaians over 40 years of age were hypertensive and unaware, a situation which may make it difficult to reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment.

He stressed the need for government to invest more funds in the health sector and ensure that the free maternal health policy worked perfectly in all parts of the country while all functional Community-Based Health Planning and Service (CHPS) are provided with logistics to work.

The symposium was co-hosted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Evaluate Project in collaboration with the Research, Statistics and Information Management Directorate (RSIMD) of the Ministry of Health and the Health Research and Development Division (RDD) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

It was on the theme “Speeding up Progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal three through Research Innovation and Partnerships”.

At the end of the Symposium, the participants proposed that health workers focused more on reducing post-partum haemorrhage among pregnant woman by improving the quality of care given during antenatal.

They also urged health authorities to employ an effective usage of Information Communication Technology in health care delivery.

The participants further advocated the development of local words for Non-Communicable Diseases to help create more awareness on the prevention and treatment of such diseases.

They said it was about time health professionals translates all health research findings into practise and devise clearer means to communicate better with the public for improved health delivery.