Takoradi Feb.26, GNA-Mr. Paul Evans Aidoo, Western Regional Minister , on Wednesday called on health professionals and stakeholders to join hands with government to strengthen and improve the nation's health delivery system by accepting postings to deprived areas of the country. Mr. Aidoo said: "We are also much concerned about the request of health staff to move from districts to the regional capital mainly for social reasons".

He made the call in an address read for him at the closing session of the three-day 2009 Annual Performance Review Meeting of the Regional Health Sector at Takoradi. He said the health sector was expected to contribute to accelerated growth and poverty reduction by playing the leading role in achieving the health goals, targets and priorities of the Ghana Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Mr. Aidoo said the Ministry of Health and Agencies were expected to make the three pillars of the national development agenda central to their business process and investments.

The Western Regional Minister said the health sector was central to government's developmental agenda and out of the eight goals to be achieved under the Millennium Development Goals, five were health related. Mr. Aidoo said these are; eradication of poverty and hunger and malnutrition by the year 2015, reduction of infant under five mortality by three quarters by 2015, improvement of maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS pandemic, malaria and other diseases and ensuring environmental sustainability.

He said health managers should be responsible for ensuring that all staff of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the region respected the policies, regulations and procedures of the service and ensure that they work assiduously to achieve the objectives of the service. Mr. Aidoo asked the Regional Director of Health to critically identify the reasons for weak data collection and come up with strategies and activities to address them adding, his office would collaborate with the GHS to improve data management. He commended the Regional Health Team for managing cases of H1N1 pandemic influenza recorded in the region in 2009 Mr. Aidoo said the PROMISE (Promote Maternal Infant Survival Excellence) Conference organized in 2009 has started yielding fruits and as a result, maternal mortality reduced from 99 in 2008 to 77 in 2009 He hoped that strategies would be developed to reduce them further by using the results of the audits to improve service delivery.

Mr. Aidoo noted that old diseases like malaria, diabetes and anaemia were re-emerging and urged the GHS to put in place strategies that ebb the morbidity and mortality caused by these diseases.

He said malaria continues to be the number one cause of morbidity and mortality in the region, accounting for 46 point 3 per cent of Out Patien= t Attendance, 47 point 5 per cent of hospital admissions and 22 point 6 percent of hospital deaths.

"We have to intensify the fight against Malaria by promoting cost-effective interventions against the disease such as the use of insecticide treated bed nets and intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in pregnancy" Mr Aidoo said.

According to him, funds would be made available for integrated malaria control activities and appealed to District Directors of Health Service to ensure the judicious use of these funds to reduce malaria cases and deaths. Dr. Linda Vanotoo, the Regional Director of Health Services, spoke against frequent water shortages as this was affecting the campaign against diarrhoea because people tend to use any kind of water when water is not flowing through the taps. She said the cause of the vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach suffered by some students of the Archbishop Porter Girls Secondary School was still n= ot clear but it could be due to contaminated water.

Dr. Vanotoo urged District Assemblies in the Region to join hands with the GHS to curb diarrhoea saying, there was the need to recruit more health education officers to help achieve health goals. 26 Feb.10