Apam gets nutrition centre

Apam, Oct. 4, GNA - A 1.1 billion-cedi Malnutrition Centre with nurses' quarters attached, has been inaugurated at Apam in the Central Region.

Ms. Masayo Matsumoto Foundation in Japan financed the project, which was initiated by Gomoa District Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), with the support of the District Assembly, which acquired the land at a cost of 10 million cedis.

Plan Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, through whose initiative the fund was provided, supervised the construction of the project and would also provide running cost of the centre to the tune of 160 million cedis for a period of one year.

Mr Samuel Paulos, Country Director, Plan Ghana, inaugurated the project and handed it over to the District Directorate of the GHS. Mr Paulos said the centre was to reduce the rate of severe malnutrition, adding that records indicated that, out of 54,000 children weighed in Gomoa District last year, 22,842 of them were at risk of malnutrition, while 1,908 were actually malnourished.

He expressed hope that with the provision of the centre the problem of malnutrition would be a thing of the past, and advised mothers to take good advantage of the facility to promote the health of thier. The Country Director said since 1999, when Plan Ghana adopted Gomoa District as one of its operational areas, it has provided the people with a number of facilities in health, education, water and sanitation, micro financing and the right of the child.

In a keynote address read on her behalf by Mr Fred Oscar Abban, the Presiding Member of the dissolved Gomoa District Assembly, Ms Joyce Aidoo, District Chief Executive for the area expressed satisfaction about the reduction of maternal mortality rate in the Gomoa District and pledged the Assembly's preparedness to construct Community Health Planning Services (CHPS) compounds in deserving towns and villages in the district.

Ms Aidoo described the provision of the nutrition centre as a blessing to people in the district, especially residents of Apam and its immediate environs and advised mothers in the area to make good use of it.

She said notwithstanding the decrease in the maternal mortality rate, her administration would foster closer links with health authorities in the district to bring the issue to zero per cent by the year 2015.

Mr. Joe Hackman, Member of Parliament for Gomoa West appealed to health workers and public health facilities to find suitable ways of educating the citizenry, particularly the illiterate among them, on how to make their hidden health problems known to medical officers in good time for diagnosis and treatment before they got out of hand. He called on chiefs, opinion leaders, husbands, churches and Islamic organisations in the district to help sensitise nursing mothers on the importance of good nutrition, domestic and environmental sanitation.

Nana Edu Effrim, X, Chief of Apam, who presided, on behalf of the District Assembly, the two Gomoa Traditional Councils and the entire people of the district, he extended his profound gratitude to the sponsors of the project and Plan Ghana for the gesture, which, he said, would help them produce healthy and brilliant children.

Nana Effrim appealed to Plan Ghana and MS Masayo Matsumoto Foundation to assist the people construct a central library/Information Communication Technology Training (ICTT) at Apam, capital of Gomoa District to enhance education in the area.

He explained that such training facility would assist in equipping the youth in the district with the requisite knowledge about ICT to enable them make positive contribution to the development of the district and the nation.