Praso Health Directorate raises concern about teenage abortions

Twifo Praso (C/R), Feb. 5, GNA - The medical director in charge of the Twifo Praso Government Hospital, Dr. John Benjamin Annan, has expressed concern about the rate at which teenage girls in the area carry out abortions with a particular birth control drug. He said last year his facility recorded 251 abortion cases and many of them were incomplete abortions with excessive bleeding and that two of the victims had their uterus perforated because they failed to seek medical attention on time.

Dr. Annan said this at the annual performance review meeting of the Twifo Praso District Health Directorate at Praso on Thursday. He said in 2008, 183 abortion cases were treated at the hospital as against 192 in 2007.

Dr Annan said he was pleased that due to vigorous education on air by health personnel and on home visits by health volunteers, supervised deliveries had increased and urged pregnant women to attend ante-natal clinics for supervision and care to prevent maternal and infant mortalities. On maternal mortality, he said of the 1,399 deliveries made at the hospital three mothers lost their lives as against two the previous year. Dr. Annan said anaemia and pneumonia cases had gone up in the district due to high malnutrition while malaria still tops the 10 deadly diseases at the hospital.

Dr. Annan appealed for the posting of more health personnel particularly, a doctor, nurses, pharmacist and an administrator to the district to beef up the staff strength which he said was inadequate. Dr. Wilberforce Adade, the District Director of Health Services, abhorred the practice where the National health Insurance Scheme delayed in reimbursing claims to health facilities and the arbitrarily slashing of claims of some facilities without any explanations.

He said the NHIS owes the district over one million Ghana cedis and called for immediate payment to keep the facilities running. He also expressed worry about the acute shortage of health professionals in the district, stating that there was only one medical doctor at the Praso Hospital that renders 24-hour service while many of the midwives were aging and nearing retirement and therefore needed to be replaced.

Dr Adade said the directorate with the assistance of the district assembly had built four new Community based Health planning and Services (CHPS) compounds in addition to the existing four and commended the World Vision (WV) for procuring some health equipment to facilitate their work. He said the government would soon build a new hospital at Daamang.