Kibi (E/R), Feb. 10, GNA - The Deputy Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Emmanuel Kojo Tinkorang, has advised sub-district heads of the Service to discuss their annual review meeting reports with their communities in and Assembly members in their areas. He held it is through such interactions that the people could know the health problems in their communities and collaborate with health workers to address them.

Dr Tinkorang was speaking at the Annual Health Review Meeting of the East Akim District Directorate at Kibi on Thursday. He said the desire of the Ghana Health Service to reduce maternal mortality could be achieved only with the support of opinion leaders and the entire community.

Dr Emmanuel Ashong of the Kibi Government Hospital observed that the district lacked specialist health workers, a situation, he said, posed problems to the area. He said the Kibi Government Hospital, despite its workload, had only a single laboratory assistant, who resided five kilometres away from the hospital, adding that this person sometimes worked for 24 hours.

He said although the hospital had one of the best labour wards in the country, there were no adequate midwives to work. He held that if the hospital had sufficient midwives, the labour ward could be turned into a maternity clinic for the hospital. The District Director of Health Services, Mrs Eunice Abuaku, said the district reduced maternal deaths from 13 in 2003 to seven in 2006. She said the district was also able to make health service geographically accessible to the people in the district by putting in operation four new CHPS centres. Mrs Abuaku said HIV/AIDS continued to be a threat to the general population of the district and that 139 out of 438 patients screened tested positive while 28 out of 139 blood donors also tested positive.