Doctor Calls For Community Participation

Dr. Sebastian Sandaare, the Lawra District Director of Health Services, has said active involvement and participation of community members in the health system was key to achieving quality health delivery. He said if community members were actively involved in the health planning and delivery process, they would get to understand the critical role they needed to play to help improve the health delivery system. �If community members get to understand that their own activities, attitudes and behaviours have a negative or positive impact on their lives they will rethink and support health promotion campaigns in their communities,� he said. Dr. Sandaare was speaking at a district health forum organised by the Lawra District Health Administration at Lawra. The forum, which was on the theme: �Ensuring a Healthy District � the Role of Community Members� brought together stakeholders including assembly members, traditional rulers and queen mothers, the district health staff and development partners. The objective of the forum was to discuss the roles of all the stakeholders and share ideas on how to improve on such roles to enhance quality health delivery in the district. Mr. Roger Gaalee, a lecturer at the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS), said active community participation in the health system enhanced early reporting of diseases leading to early treatment. Mr. Gaalee a former Health Administrator at the Upper West Regional Hospital, added that when community members were involved, it offered them the opportunity to understand why sometimes health workers behave the way they do towards patients. Dr. Wilfred Ofosu, the Deputy Upper West Regional Director of Health Services, commended the Lawra District Health Directorate for creating the platform for stakeholders to deliberate on their roles and how best they could step it up to improve on quality health services delivery in the district. He stated that so far it did not appear the country could achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) because women and children are still dying. Dr. Ofosu added that if communities were well sensitized on their role for them to wake up and play it actively, something positive could come out of it to turn around the situation on the attainment of the MDGs on health. The Deputy Regional Director of Health Services also reminded the people of the deadly Ebola virus and appealed to districts to intensify sensitisation on the disease so that people would know what to do in case the unfortunate happened and the disease hits the country. Pognaa Napog Kpintaatobo, the Queen Mother of Baazing Traditional Area and a participant at the forum, called for women to be empowered adequately since they are at the helm of affairs when it came to family nutrition.