Health worker at Gaani weighing a baby under a tree
There are many communities in the Upper East Region that do not have health facilities and residents have to travel long distances to access basic healthcare.
Gaani in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region is one of such communities without a community health centre in the Upper East Region but the residents have managed to provide a makeshift structure to help provide healthcare services to the residents.
The health workers there have been delivering services to the residents under a tree.
According to the health workers, they have been working in the open for many years because there is no conducive structure to use as a health centre.
DAILY GUIDE gathered that the health workers had been complaining and had made several efforts to get the Kassena-Nankana Municipal Assembly to provide the Gaani Health Centre with a befitting structure, but their efforts had not yielded any positive results.
The President of the Gaani Concerned Citizens Association, Joseph Aminini, told the DAILY GUIDE that in 2017, the association was able to organize a homecoming ceremony in the community which was aimed at mobilizing resources to put up a structure for the Gaani Health Centre.
According to him, the initiative yielded some funds which the community used in putting up a pavilion with two rooms to serve as an office and storeroom but unfortunately the community had run out of funds and the project stalled.
“Community members have made several appeals to the assembly, but it seems our health and the health of our children are not important to them. Authorities do not seem to care about us,” a resident lamented.
The Kassena-Nankana Municipal Chief Executive, William Aduum, in a response, said the situation at the Gaani Community came to his attention in 2020 and assured that the assembly would mobilize resources to construct a befitting health centre for the Gaani community soon.
FROM: Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Gaani