From left: H.E Himeno Tsutomu, Anne-Claire Dufay, Minister of Health Kwaku Agyeman-Manu and Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye
The United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Ghana and the Japanese government have signed an agreement to undertake a Maternal and Child Health (MCH) record book project in Ghana.
The two-year project seeks to reach most vulnerable children and their families in areas where there is low performance of health and nutrition indicators such as immunization, iron folic supplementation of women and exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding.
It will also seek to strengthen the capacity of health workers on equity-informed implementation and monitoring of preventive care in the first 1,000 days of life, including the use of Japanese ‘Kaizen’ model to improve efficiency, as well as client and staff satisfaction.
In all, the $915,000 project will cover 740,000 mothers and children in 80 districts, as well as nine regions of Ghana, in order for them to benefit from the improved continuum of preventive care.
The Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, Himeno Tsutomu, in his brief remarks, said the project would start middle of March 2020 and end in March 2022.
The UNICEF country representative, Anne-Claire Dufay, said data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey indicated that while trends are encouraging, more progress is required to improve child and maternal health in Ghana.
She expressed appreciation towards the support exuded by the Japanese government in terms of reducing maternal, neonatal and child mortality rate.
Besides, Ms. Dufay gave an assurance that UNICEF would work jointly with the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to achieve positive results and make a difference in the lives of most vulnerable families.
She said the country’s neonatal mortality rate stood at 27 deaths per 100 live births, while maternal mortality still accounted for 14 per cent in reproductive age deaths.
The Director General of GHS, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, in his address, said the current project would contribute to improve delivery and integration of essential services such as growth monitoring, infant and young child nutrition, malaria prevention immunization, as well as strengthening the continuum of care provision.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye added that the project was in line with the agenda of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and also aimed at meeting the set goals of improving reproductive maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition in Ghana.
By Mary Asieduwaa