UWR: Ghana Health Service in collaboration with Norsaac launches Health Fair in Wa

The Upper West Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service in collaboration with Norsaac, a non-governmental organization, officially launched a  regional GoodLife (live it well) Health Fair in Wa, regional Capital of the Upper West Region on September 17, 2024.

The 3-day- long Health Fair was organized under the theme dubbed “Promoting Good Life through the adoption of positive health behaviors” would ensure the provision of quality  health services, and products in rural communities, with the goal of increasing access to health care, and intensifying health litracy in the Upper West Region.

Speaking to the media after the launch,  Dr. Damien Punguyire, Upper West Regional Director of Health Services, says, health care delivery is not limited to only medical care at the hospitals adding that, the officially launched health fair is part of efforts to promote the healthcare services available in the region.

He mentioned that, some efforts are being undertaken by the Regional and District Health directorates towards educating the public on the significance of consuming nutritious food as well as adopting good health habits.

“Health is not just about medical care, medical care is provided at the hospital when somebody is sick and then we treat you, but ASBC activities, these are the activities that want to promote quality living so that people don’t even fall sick. It cost a lot of money to take care of someone who is sick especially once the person has to be admitted and so on. So the ASBC project is coming with the support from the region, we have been educating the community members, giving information on positive living just for them to appreciate and know what to do so that, they can stay healthy because it pays to be healthy than to fall sick”

Dr. Damien adds that, the launching of the Good Life Health Fair in the Upper West Region, gives the Regional Health Directorate another opportunity to promote health services they render adding that, they provide services covering all age groups especially vaccinating children against common diseases that kill them, educating adolescents on adolescent reproductive health and the need for the adult group to protect themselves from sexual transmitted diseases.

“We see this launch as another avenue to promote these services that we render not just only hospital based services, we have services covering all age groups, when a child is born today we provide services that will let the child stay healthy and live to his or her potential like the vaccination services tha we provide, we also give nutritional support, children under five we give them vaccination against common diseases that kill our children” he noted.

The Upper West Regional Director of Health Services, also, called on players in the private sector such as laboratories, pharmacies, the media amongst other agencies, to collaborate and support the Upper West Regional Health Directorate to continue to deliver quality health care services.

In furtherance, Mohammed Awal Alhassan, the Executive Director of Norsaac, revealed that, for the past 4 years, Norsaac has covered seventeen (17) districts across Ghana, with plans to expand to 60 districts nationwide.

Norsaac mentioned that, the NGO aims to cover all the 11 districts in the Upper West Region in order to promote community-level engagement on positive health behaviors, asserting that, the project would improve health literacy in communities, as well as enhancing the health care system.

He encouraged the citizens of Upper West Region to take advantage of the health services, information and resources available. Mr. Mohammed Awal Alhassan indicated that, Norsaac will continue to support and resource the Ghana Health Service to continue to provide quality health services.

“We encourage everyone to make their way to the venue and take full advantage of the health services,information, and resoruces available. Norsaac is committed to surporting the Ghana Health Service and will continue to resource them as they deliver critical services to our communities” Mr. Mohammed stated.

Meanwhile, Alhaj Lawyer Hudu Alhassan, Deputy Chief of Party for SBCC, underscored the significant roles the private sector plays towards contributing to quality healthcare delivery and thereby appealed to other stakeholders in the sector such as filling stations, pharmacies, banks amongst others to come on board and support the Ghana Health Service to be able to draw quality health delivery closer to the people.

“We want to see the banks coming on board, wellness clinics, we want to see other facilities and other private sectors like filling stations coming on board, pharmacies coming on board to support the Ghana Health Services to go down to the people and provide quality services in terms of checking of BP, checking of Hepatitis, checking of temperature and all that and ensuring that peiople’s health is being upgraded and getting into greater health outcome”

He adds that, with the needed support the Ghana Health Service would be able to change the people’s behavior towards health services stressing that, untill the Ghana Health Service changes the behaviour of people,  Ghana would not be able to achieve the universal health coverage.

“Untill we change behaviuors we cannot be able to guarantee universal health coverage, behaviors are what will take people to the health centers and so we are working to ensure that demand driven initiatives are getting people first of all, to access health services timely and secondly, to ensure that services are also available at the health facilities when they go there” Lawyer Hudu Alhassan stressed.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Ministry of Health, and the Ghana Health Service have collaborated to launch the 3-day “Good Life, Live it Well” campaign in the Upper West Region.
This campaign serves as the overarching brand for the Ghana Health Service and seeks to promote positive health behaviors through media engagement.

As part of gracing the 3-day long Health Fair, general health screening, general health talk, nutrition and food demontration, persional and environmental hygiene as well as adolescent health talk were carried out.

Other activities include, family planning and contraceptive counselling, malaria prevention methods and LLINs demontrations are being carried out. The event featured several diffrent health stands and opportunity was provided for them to educate the citizenry on their products and services.

Source: Saeed Fatawu|myghanawatch.com|W93.5FM|0248265593|