Hlefi, June 1, GNA-Ghana Health Service (GHS) outreaches over the past few years has convinced some members of the Kpale (Xorse) Faith Church, at Kpale, in the Ho Municipality to report at healthcare facilities and use prescribed drugs when sick. The Kpale Faith Church, like other faith-cure religious groups, teaches its members to refuse orthodox medicine either for curative or preventive purposes.

Miss Veronica Ayivi, Principal Midwifery Officer (PMO) at the Hlefi Health Centre told the GNA just before she received health equipment gifts for the Centre that their incessant pleadings had attracted many members of the church to the clinic for treatment. She said there were others who had accepted to visit health facilities but would rather go far away and take their prescriptions in secret to avoid being branded as renegades by the "faithful". About a decade ago the Kpale Xorse Church came in the news when Captain George Nfodjo (rtd), Member of Parliament for Ho-Central, then as Ho District Chief Executive (DCE), led a team of Police Personnel to forcibly dispense Polio vaccines to kids during a church service, amidst curses from church members.

Miss Ayibi said some church members now accepted vitamin supplements and worm expellants for their kids but still resisted vaccines.

The Hlefi Club 30, a development union of citizens of Hlefi, donated the hospital equipment, worth GH¢ 2,000 to the Health Centre. They items, sourced from Kasapa Telecom Limited, are a tabletop refrigerator, three super density mattresses, a sphygmomanometer, a tabletop telephone with GH¢ 100 units and 51 bed sheets and pillowcases.

Miss Ayibi said the gifts would help boast the flagging morale of health workers at the clinic, built through self-help in 1976, but now in dire need of refurbishment. She said the health Centre urgently needed delivery sets to maintain the record of no maternal deaths in the past 20 years. Miss Ayibi said currently, she uses her own scissors and two old forceps in deliveries.

Before the presentation, Mr. Ephraim Akoni, Assembly Member for the area took the media round the Centre, which, he said was not getting enough attention from the central government.

He said besides a quarters, built from the HIPC funds in 2006, the health centre had had no additional infrastructure since 1976. Mr Akoni said Nurses fetch water in buckets for use at the wards and wondered what had become of a contract for water reservoirs and a general renovation of the Centre awarded since 2002. Mr Samuel Ewade, President of the Hlefi Club 30 called for investigations into how medical items supplied to clinic were diverted. He pleaded with the Ghana Health Service to find a replacement for the Medical Assistant transferred from the Centre years ago and also post a Laboratory Technician to the Centre.

Mr Ewade also asked the health authorities to consider upgrading the Centre, used by 12 communities, into a hospital. Togbe Stephen Kpai, who presided over the function appealed to the nurses to use the equipment judiciously and resist stocking the fridge with food items instead of drugs and vaccines. 01 June 08