By Mildred Siabi-Mensah

Nzema Akropong (W/R), Sept. 29, GNA - Nana Adu-Kwao II, Chief of Nzema Akropong in the Western Region, is worth celebrating for making a significant mark in the lives of the people he rules over.

He had the dream to build a community health and planning services centre (CHPS) for his community members, who had to travel from 10 to 15 kilometers to access quality healthcare service.

“Seeing a seven year- old boy die in my hands because he had mistakenly chewed millipede whilst in the farm with the mother due to lack of transportation to the nearest facility was a big blow to me as a chief.

“In fact, I had to go into my closet and cry whilst I questioned why my people,” he told the Ghana News Agency,” in an interview.

Nana Adu-Kwao said he travelled to the District Assembly on numerous occasions for a health post in the area had not yielded any positive results over the years.

“One day, I went to the district office to follow up on my quest for a health centre for my people and I was told that the Supportive Technical Assistance to Revitalise (STAR) CHPS project had been launched by the Jubilee Partners in collaboration with Jhpiego and the Ghana Health Service, to increase access to high quality basic healthcare.

“But the project was not prepared to put up any infrastructure to house health personnel,” he said.

The STAR CHPS project has provided enormous technical support to strengthen and revitalise 62 CHPS zones through the use of Jhpiego-developed quality improvement tool known as Standards-based management and Recognition (SBM-R) to improve performance and quality health care services.

The five- year project, which officially rounds up in October, provided basic training and use of special designed tools, to enhance efficient and standardised management of clinical procedures in the project facilities.

Nana Adu-Kwao said common diseases together with teenage pregnancies are the order of the day in the Akropong area of Nzemaland.

He said he is prepared to save the lives of the people entrusted into his hands and so he committed GH? 30,000.00 from the savings he together with his wife had made from their farming business to put up a five- room facility as contribution for healthy lifestyle in his community.

Some community members began spreading rumours that Nana was building stores while others thought he was putting up apartments for rental purposes.

He said: “As a chief, I am responsible for checking the habits in every family and so I concentrated on the vision to build a CHPS compound to serve the health needs of my people without given a hoot about all the rumours. Actually, it rather spurred me on to accomplish the vision.”

In no time, the five- room facility was ready and well-furnished for take-off.

“I had to disburse GH? 5000.00 to help in recruiting health professionals to my area, house and even sponsor part of their feeding all in the name of quality health care.”

Nana Adu-Kwao efforts were crowned with success as the community now enjoys good primary health care.

He said he earnestly followed up on the action plan to ensure that the community is achieving good results in all the health indicators.

“My investment in the health of my people has really brought me some joy. My teenage girls have learnt family planning and are staying in school much longer than before and rampant sickness and diseases are a thing of the past.”

The jubilee partners and Jhpiego together with the Ghana Health Service made a commitment to improve the health well-being of people in the six coastal districts of Ghana.

The project covered 395,583 people from 430 communities in the six districts of the Region with an integrated and holistic system, which seeks to improve quality health care services in the area of malaria control, antenatal care, family planning, immunisation, growth monitoring and basic outpatient care.

Major Regina Akai-Nettey (Rtd), Senior Technical Advisor to the STAR CHPS project said the project revitalised 62 CHPS zones, built the capacity of 321 community health officers, 401 volunteers and 413 management committee to enable them to carry out activities in the community to improve high quality health delivery.

She said 59 of the CHPS zones were assisted to be on National Health Insurance Scheme as well as providing home visiting bags containing medicine stock to help in community outreach.

Major Akai-Nettey celebrated the key partners for ensuring the success of the project, which had recorded significant improvement in community health.

Motorbikes, certificates and plaques were awarded to individuals, facilities and some traditional leaders for their contributions towards the project.