Health of poor communities impact negatively on national indices (Mirror)

Sat December 12, 2009
THE Minister of Health, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, has stated that conditions of people in poor communities impact negatively on the health indices of the country.
He said that was so because those communities usually had more than the average share of morbidity and mortality.
He said for example, the last Demographic and Health Survey showed that 78 per cent of Ghanaian children suffered from anaemia of some sort, adding that “this is simply unacceptable”.
Addressing participants at the three-day Annual General and Scientific Meeting of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons in Accra on Wednesday, Dr Kunbuor said the health implications of such communities, especially urban slums like Sodom and Gomorrah were grave.
He said the disease profile of the country also showed evidence of marked poverty and explained that that was characterised by a high incidence of communicable diseases with malaria being the highest cause of illness and death, especially among children under five years of age.
“Vaccine-preventable diseases also continue to exact a high toll among children, while conditions related to or aggravated by malnutrition rank among the highest causes of death in all age groups”, he pointed out.
Dr Kunbuor said apart from the increase in communicable diseases in the urban slums, those communities became breeding grounds for drug-resistant ineffective agents.
Touching on the theme for the two-day event: “Poverty and Health”, he said in Ghana about 40 per cent of the total population was estimated to be living in poverty with nearly one quarter of the population living in extreme poverty.
The health minister said five of the 10 regions in Ghana had more than 40 per cent of their population living in poverty, adding that in the three northern regions, that ranged between 65 and 85 per cent.
He said he raised the points to demonstrate the intricate link between poverty and health and to recognise the need to develop large-scale, cost-effective social protection programmes that would enable the poor to make choices that do not undermine their current or future well-being.
He said the government was aware of the situation and had, therefore, introduced clear policies that would leverage the effects of poverty to a large extent.
He mentioned the proposed one-time premium payment under the Health Insurance Scheme, the continuation of the free maternity services and the scale-up of the close-to-client service strategy as some of the policies aimed at reducing the effects of poverty at the community level.
In his welcoming address, the Rector of the College of Physicains and Surgeons, Professor Paul Kwame Nyame, appealed to the government to, as a matter of urgency, appoint the council for the college to ensure effective supervision of the activities of the college.
Prof. Nyame observed that it was time for the college to have a Code of Conduct with a judicial process for Fellows and Members, to protect the credibility of the college and its autonomy, adding that “this, and a Legislative Instrument (LI) have been held in abeyance because of the, hopefully, imminent review of the Law of the College”.
Touching on the operations of the college, he said it admitted 85 new residents into various specialities which included Family Medicine; Laboratory Medicine; Internal Medicine; Dental Surgery; Emergency Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology; General Surgery; Psychiatry; Public Health and Radiology, among others.
The President of the outgoing council, Professor Samuel Ofosu-Amaah, said the year 2009 had been an unusual one for the college because the Ministry the Health wrote to dissolve the council for the college but had failed to appoint a new council.
He reiterated the call for a new council to be appointed since without a council, the college could not operate as required by law.
As part of the event, 17 new Fellows were admitted to the college in addition to 65 specialists who passed out from the college.