SEND Ghana, an anti corruption based organisation has rewarded two health facilities in the Upper West Region for emerging as best performing facilities in the provision of maternal health services.

The two facilities are the Tumu District Hospital in the Sissala East District and the Sombo Health Centre in the Nadowli-Kaleo District, and they will each receive two hospital beds and mattresses, two delivery sets and one diagnostic set.

Presenting the items to the Regional Health Directorate for onward distribution to the facilities, Mr. Bashiru Jumah, SEND Ghana Upper West Regional Programmes Officer, said the gesture formed part of the implementation of a project dubbed “Improving Maternal Health Service Delivery through Participatory Governance (IMPROVE).

The three year project (February 2014 to January 2017) was implemented jointly by SEND Ghana, Christian Aid and Ghana Health Service (GHS) with funding support from the European Union (EU).

Its overall goal is to contribute to effective delivery of maternal health services in Ghana and progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal five (MDG5).

Mr Jumah said the project specifically seeks to ensure that citizens in 30 districts across Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions of Ghana were effectively holding government to account, leading to improved accountability, responsiveness and service delivery in the area of maternal health by the end of 2016.

Beneficiary districts in the Upper West Region, include Wa East, Wa West, Nadowli-Kaleo, Jirapa, Lawra, Lambussie, Sissala East and Sissala West Districts.

Mr Jumah said the project is an award scheme to reward facilities that contributed towards achieving MDG5 through evidence of strong accountability and transparency in the provision of maternal health related services.

“In this respect, a rigorous assessment was conducted across the eight participatory districts by the Regional Health Directorate between November and December 2016 before selecting two best performing facilities, including a District Hospital and a Health Centre”, he said.

The SEND Ghana Upper West Programme Officer hinted that the assessment was carried out based on certain key performance indicators notably; access, service and governance.

Mr. Jumah said a meeting was held in January 2017 in Tamale where a total of six facilities, two each from the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern Regions were presented with a citation for their consistency in promoting maternal health service delivery.

Mr. Richard Basadi, Upper West Regional Health Research Officer, who received the equipment on behalf of the Regional Director of Health Services, noted that, SEND Ghana for the past four years had been one of their loyal partners in improving maternal and child health in the region.

Mr Basadi, who also doubles as the Regional In-Service Training Coordinator and the Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Regional Health Directorate said the facilities, after receiving the equipment would be expected to further improve on maternal and neonatal health indicators.