MoH to institute award scheme for health reporting

THE Ministry of Health (MoH) is to institute an awards scheme to motivate journalists to have interest in health reporting.
The scheme, which is to be in honour of the late Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (retd) will look at reports on various thematic areas of public health and present awards accordingly.
This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo when he visited the Graphic Communication Groups Limited yesterday to solicit support for regular reports on health in the company’s stables of newspapers.
Mr Mettle-Nunoo said the ministry had decided to honour the late Major Quashigah because of his innovative ideas of “creating wealth through health” with the introduction of the Regenerative Health and Nutrition Programme which he pushed with passion during his tenure as the sector minister.
The Regenerative Health and Nutrition Programme as introduced under the leadership of Major Quashigah promoted balanced diet, exercising, drinking enough clean water, observing personal hygiene, resting, reduction in alcohol intake and safe sex, among others.
Paying glowing tribute to the late minister, the Deputy Minister said those ideas of the late Major Quashigah now formed part of the policy of the MoH adding that there was the need to remember him for his works which concentrated on preventive health.
The late Major Quashigah who was born on September 9, 1947 at Kedzi in the Volta Region, died on January 5, 2010 at the Sokora Hospital at Beersheba in Israel after a short illness. His burial and final funeral rites will take place this week end.
On the awards for best health reporters, Mr Mettle-Nunoo said the mode for selecting winners under the scheme would be put in place in collaboration with selected panellists including seasoned journalists to ensure that the best reports were selected.
He touched on the need for journalists to broaden their frontiers as far as health reporting was concerned for the benefit of the Ghanaian public.
He said with the proposed awards, the MoH expected journalists to be much motivated to do more on health so as to educate the people to have interest in their own individual health matters since “health is wealth”.
“There is the need for people to own their health since bad health affects productivity”, he stressed.
Citing instances to support the project, Mr Mettle-Nunoo said with the right information, mothers for example would be in the position to provide nutritious meals for their children, which in a way could protect them against diseases. Some of the diseases to be prevented, according to the Deputy Minister were malaria, diarrhoea and guinea worm infection.
He pointed out that with the right information, parents for example, could be encouraged to cultivate fruits and vegetables which they could use to feed their children to live healthy lives even if there was nothing available for the children to be fed with.
For his part, the Director, Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the MoH, Dr Frank Nyonator stated that the legacy Major Quashigah left was worth sustaining by the ministry.
He said the initiative he introduced if properly followed, could help Ghana achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adding that they were simple interventions which could easily be followed.
In his response, the Managing Director (MD) of the GCGL, Mr Mohammed Ibrahim Awal commended the MoH for the steps taken to get journalists to report more on health.
He gave the assurance that the company would support the ministry in that regard adding that with its large readership, the various newspapers of the company would be relied on to get the right messages across to the people.
Mr Awal urged the health sector to find ways of training some selected journalists with interest in health reporting to enable them to specialise on matters concerning the health of the people.