Rachael Asantewaa Ntow (right), an official of the FDA, explaining the functions of some approved drugs to the dignitaries during an exhibition mounted as part of the forum. Among them are Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Prof. Stanley Okolo (left) and Dr. Moeti Matshidiso, Regional Director of WHO
The West African Health Organisation (WAHO) has held a three-day forum on best practices in health, particularly maternal, child and adolescent reproductive health.
The forum which ended yesterday focused on scaling up best health practices in the region as part of efforts to build a robust, holistically responsive and resilient healthcare system within member states.
Dubbed: ‘Promoting Multi-Sectoral Collaboration to Achieve Maternal, Newborn, Child & Adolescent & Young People’s Health To Attain The Health-Related Sustainable Development Goals’, the event sought to use the problem solving approach as a way of overcoming challenges encountered in the sub-region in terms of healthcare delivery.
The Director-General of WAHO, Prof. Stanley Okolo, expressed concern that despite the interventions, maternal and child mortality rates in West Africa are the highest in the world.
He said it was against that background that in 2014 the 15th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Assembly of Health Ministers adopted a resolution establishing the forum to facilitate the documentation, dissemination and scaling up of effective and proven practices in health, with particular emphasis on the vulnerable.
Prof. Okoyo expressed hope that the forum had provided the platform for knowledge and experience sharing, as well as the showcase of innovative interventions.
“Establishing such a regional platform is a sure way of ensuring that interventions in the countries can produce positive health outcomes at an accelerated rate,” he hinted.
Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu underscored the need for multi-sectoral collaborations in the provision of quality healthcare in line with international best practices across the region.
He said improvement in maternal, new-born, child and adolescent health is of global concern and that “Ghana has identified and ranked these issues as key priorities in the health sector due to their diverse effects on productivity.”
Mr. Agyeman-Manu added that governments have, over the years, also developed and implemented many interventions in the sector to ensure quality healthcare.
The Country Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Owen Kaluwa, said health has been enshrined as a fundamental human right in the constitution of the WHO and that it is for that reason that good health and well-being for all is adequately captured in the global development agenda, the SDGs.
He, therefore, called for national and regional partnerships among agencies and member countries to accelerate the delivery of quality healthcare for all.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri