Asesewa, Dec 23, GNA - Many Women in the Upper Manya District now attend prayer camps and other healing centres for ante-natal care instead of health centres or clinics.

The reasons are that they have to trek long distances before getting access to a medical facility and the inadequate Community Health and Planning Services (CHPS) Centres in the area.

Out of the 28 CHPS centres earmarked by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) for the District, only five are operational serving the over 50 communities in the area.

Coupled with that situation, there are only three qualified midwives in the district.

Investigations conducted by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) revealed also that some of the communities on the mountainous area in the district had no healthcare centres and vehicles could not ply those areas causing a lot of inconvenience to pregnant women.

The GNA in the cause of the investigations chanced upon three pregnant women coming from a prayer camp and when engaged in a conversation, they said the prayer camp was closer to them than the health facility where they had to walk about six kilometres.

The women contended that since their areas were inaccessible for vehicles, they had to go through a lot of stress whenever they visited health centres for antenatal care.

The women said they had to go through such an ordeal before getting to health facilities when the time came for delivery and to save time they attended prayer camps for prayers and later delivered at home or with the help of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) in their communities.

The District Director of Health, Mr Yaw Agyei Boateng, when contacted confirmed the story and said from January to December seven maternal deaths had occurred in the area as against three that were recorded within the same period last year.

He added that the district had identified 29 prayer camps, which were taking advantage of the situation and provided accommodation for pregnant women to stay there for prayers.

Mr Boateng told the GNA that the TBA’s on monthly basis delivered twice the figure, which were recorded at the health facilities and indicated that it was a source of worry because the TBA’s had no capacity to manage complications that might arose from the delivery.