Dr. Leticia Adelaide Appiah
The Executive Director of the National Population Council, Dr. Leticia Adelaide Appiah, has charged African leaders to focus on family planning education as an effective response to the rising population of African countries.
She said: “After all, good politics improves human lives, reproductive health rights and responsibilities also improve human lives; therefore improving reproductive health and rights in a responsible way is good politics”.
Her thoughts were contained in an interview she granted a Nigerian journalist on the sidelines of the recent ‘Adolescent Reproductive Health and Rights Summit’ held in Accra.
She called on ECOWAS and AU member countries to support one another in breaking the poverty cycle by simultaneously implementing an effective family planning programme, adding, “ After all, the World Bank talks about GDP per capita. This means nations should help their citizens reproduce themselves healthily and work effectively and efficiently to improve the GDP per capita.”
Her explanation of what overpopulation really is was particularly exciting.
“Overpopulation is an undesirable condition where numbers of existing human population exceed the carrying capacity of the earth. This is because of reduced mortality rate, better medical facilities, industrialization and improved public health and high fertility levels. Africa’s rapid population growth is making it extremely difficult for governments to supply the needed social and economic programmes to improve quality of life,” she explained.
She said overpopulation has far-reaching consequences in many African countries including Nigeria and Ghana.
In comparing Ghana and Nigeria – two former British colonies – she said, “The former is doing relatively better than the latter in managing the subject because the population is far less and the fertility rate is also lower. Nonetheless, the government of Ghana also needs to reposition family planning to reduce fertility and dependency ratio for accelerated socio-economic development”.
“I completed medical training in June 1993 from Donetsk Medical School in Ukraine and came home immediately fired up to contribute my quota to national development. During my training in Donetsk, the maternity ward was the happiest of all the wards because there was joy, flowers and smiles when babies were born. I therefore decided that I needed to specialise as an obstetrician gynaecologist because I wanted to be there to always welcome new precious citizens into our world. However, when I started practising medicine in Ghana, I realised to my dismay and sadness that not all babies in Ghana are received in the world with joy, laughter and smiles. Some parents are ill prepared to receive them, whiles some are just not wanted and end up abandoned, malnourished or simply maltreated. I therefore decided to pursue a Master’s in Public Health to enable me get closer to the community since health or diseases are manufactured in homes which is the best place for health interventions for maximum effect. In 2003, I completed my Master’s in Public Health and completing my PhD in public health this year,” she narrated.
“I was appointed as the Director of Health Services in 2008 at the Ledzokuku-Krowor Health Directorate in the greater Accra Region when the municipality was newly established, a position I held until November 2016 when I was appointed the Executive Director of the National Population Council, the highest advisory body to the government of Ghana on population and related issues,” she added.
By A.R. Gomda