Takoradi, June 14, GNA 97 Some District Directors of Health have expressed concern that inadequate resources are hampering quality health care delivery at the district level.

They complained about inadequate staff, office accommodation, funds and other constraints to quality health care delivery in some districts in the country.

This came to light at a press briefing in Takoradi on Tuesday, ahead of the 19th annual conference of the district directors of health services group, which would be held in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis from June 15-18, 2011.

The theme for the conference is 94Effective Leadership at the District level, the key to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals four, five and six - The Role of the District Directors of Health".

Making a contribution at the meeting, Mrs Elizabeth Conny, the District Health Director of the Ellembelle District noted that the district health directorate was facing a number of challenges.

She said the district was carved out of the Nzema East District; therefore, it lacked basic facilities of its own.

"The district health directorate did not have office accommodation; therefore, we are operating from rented premises, which we pay GH¢36,000 on yearly basis. Besides, the communities are sparsely located on islands and very difficult to reach them", she observed.

The District Health Director also expressed concern about inadequate staff, adding that health personnel posted to the district were mostly fresh graduates who lacked experience and had to be retrained.

She said that the budget allocated to them was woefully inadequate to cater for the needs of the people in the district thereby putting them in stressful situation.

"All these factors had contributed to high child mortality and maternal rates whilst HIV, Malaria and other communicable and contagious diseases are not reducing in the district. Again, the district is hosting refugees from the Ivory Coast and Liberia therefore putting a lot of constraints on us," she lamented.

In the face of the challenges, the National Chairman of the District Health Directors Group, Dr Kofi Setheland urged them to be creative and take difficult decisions that would help to improve health care at the district level.

He also called for community involvement in mobilizing the people to be educated on health issues.

This, he said, would help to identify health problems of the various communities so that efforts would be put in place to address them. Dr Setheland said from July mosquito bed nets would be distributed in the Region.