Ho, Aug.14, GNA-Major Courage Quashigah, Minister of Health on Tuesday stated that the "intelligent human capital" need of the country was dependent on midwives.

He said it was therefore, essential that the country's midwives strategize and educate the public on pregnancy and delivery techniques to produce high quality human resource for the nation. Major Quashigah said this at the 6th Biennial General Meeting of the Ghana Registered Midwives Association (GRMA) in Ho. The Meeting was on the theme; "Global shortage of midwives- a call for action".

Major Quashigah stated that the economic success of many nations without natural resources was the result of their dependence on the quality of human capital and asked the GRMA to " lay a strong human resource foundation for the country with the delivery of children with good health and high intelligent quotient."

He observed that many pregnant women in the country were ignorant of human activities that affected budding system in the womb and urged midwives to constantly educate the public on the importance of nutrition at expectancy stage.

" Many pregnant women take in everything including alcohol and give birth to mentally retarded and deformed babies", he said.

Major Quashigah said these were the main problems of the country and urged the GRMA to improve upon knowledge acquired from their forbearers and share them with the public to safeguard the country's dream of achieving the Millennium Development Goal by 2015. Mrs. Ernestina Djokoto President said shortage of midwives and training prgrammes remained the major problems of the Association and called on the government to empower health workers who had left active service and others being under-utilized to join the GRMA for the country to achieve the objective of safe motherhood by 2015. She said, " the times when midwives stayed at the hospitals and maternity homes waiting for clients has past" and appealed to midwives in the country to visit clients in their communities.

In a fraternal message, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH) all pledged their unflagging support to the GRMA for the country to achieve the MDG by 2015.