Kumasi, Dec. 22, GNA - About 1,296 pregnant women have undergone voluntary counselling and testing for HIV/AIDS at the Kumasi South Hospital at Kyirapatre this year. The figure shows an increase of 1,019, as compared to 277 women who undertook the test last year.

Mrs Vivian Addo-Cobbia, Principal Nursing Officer in-charge of the Kumasi South Hospital, who announced this, attributed the sharp rise to the continuous education and durbars like Daddy's Fora, which brings husbands and wives especially pregnant wives together to share ideas and views on reproductive health.

She was speaking at the fourth and final Daddy's Forum for the year at the Hospital on Saturday.

Mrs Addo-Cobbia who hailed the success of the fora, urged the government to make the Daddy's Forum a national policy, explaining that since she mooted and implemented the idea about two years ago, antenatal and postnatal attendances had increased tremendously as most men now brought their babies to the Hospital for weighing. She said complications during delivery had also reduced since the inception of the forum.

Madam Mary Konadu, a Senior Nursing Superintendent urged relatives and husbands of pregnant women not to force them to go to their villages to deliver but should accompany them to the hospital to deliver so as to ease the pains.

Dr (Mrs) Alberta Nyarko of the Hospital, who chaired the function, called for co-operation between health personnel and the public to ensure quality health care delivery.