Gomoa Eshiem, April 15, GNA - A Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compound, has been inaugurated at Gomoa Eshiem with a call on health workers to focus more on preventive aspect of health. Mr Kwame Oppong, Director at the Central Regional coordinating Council, who made the call said many of the diseases, which attacked Ghanaians could have been prevented if attention was paid to personal and environmental hygiene.

Mr Oppong, who represented Mrs Ama Benyiwa-Doe, the Regional Minister noted that nurses and doctors would have less work to do if education on the need for observing cleanliness had gotten down well with the people.

He called for the re-introduction of personal hygiene in schools where teachers inspect students' under wears, finger nails, hair and teeth.

Mr Oppong said due to limited resources, government was running a "demand-driven concept" of administration which enjoined the communities to initiate projects to attract the support of the government. "Communities which expect manna to drop form heaven, will think the government is insensitive to their plight", he stressed. Ms Gifty Ankrah Gomoa West District Director of the Ghana Health Services (GHS) said the CHPS concept was an intervention to bring health delivery to the door steps of the people.

"It is a community based concept which gives the people the chance to manage their health needs with a trained community health officer as their guide," she said.

Ms Ankrah noted that the success of CHPS depended on the cooperation and support of the people in its management and patronage. She appealed to the people to seek early treatment for their ailments saying "seeking early treatment is about 50 per cent cure found".

Mr Francis Arthur, Member of Parliament for Gomoa West said the government was working out modalities for the payment of the one time National Health Insurance Premium and urged people to continue to patronize the on-going system.

Mr Edmund Osei Kwakye, District Disease Control Officer appealed to the people to accept referrals to bigger health facility because the CHPS compounds were does not handle major cases. Nana Kwa Donkoh III, chief of Gomoa Eshiem said the community had made land ready for the expansion of the CHPS compound to a hospital status.

He appealed to the Gomoa West District Assembly to provide them with toilet facilities and a market. 15 April 09