Dr Patrick Amo-Mensah, Senior Medical Officer in-charge of the Kaneshie Polyclinic, has advised opinion leaders in the Mukose Electoral Area at North Kaneshie to extend the Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) message to other communities to help reduce barriers to geographical access to healthcare.

Dr Amo-Mensah gave the advice in a speech read on his behalf by Mrs Gloria Aidoo, Coordinator of CHPS at the Kaneshie Polyclinic, at the inauguration of the North Kaneshie Zone in the Okaikwei South District in Accra at the weekend.

He tasked trained volunteers to identify and reach out to persons in the communities who need their services, as part of measures to make healthcare accessible to all.

He said the programme, which was started in Navrongo, helps to provide information and education, and asked the people to accept the concept and commit themselves to it.

The staff, known as Community Health Officers (CHO), provide mobile door-steps services to the people, including immunization, family planning, supervising delivery, ante-natal care, treatment of minor ailments and health education.

The Medical Officer said community health services require simple facilities like Community Health Compound, living room for CHO and a room for clinic.

“Building these facilities involve both traditional leaders, stakeholders in planning and resource mobilization and volunteers for reaching the unreached has become successful.”

The Assemblyman for the Mukose Electoral Area in the Okaikwei South District, Mr Tei Okunor, underscored the importance of health needs as part of government’s development agenda, and called on all the community members to support the CHPS.

He noted that the objectives of the CHPS were not only for awareness creation, but to also socialize.

Mr Okunor reminded the people that there are many young men and women, who due to ignorance, engage in things that expose them to several health challenges, and urged the people of North Kaneshie to embrace the CHPS programme in the area.