Sunyani, May 18, GNA- Vice President John Dramani Mahama has called for a closer collaboration between the church and government to provide quality health by reducing infant and maternal mortality.

He said the current infant mortality rate of 450 out of every 100,000 births in the country was not only scaring but also impeded Ghana's desires to meet all the Millennium Development Goals on schedule. "While the government has the duty to provide infrastructure and human resources, the church and other benevolent organizations also have the complementary role of supporting in the training of personnel to man such facilities for the betterment of our country."

The Vice President said these during the ground breaking ceremony for the proposed Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Nursing Training College at Sunyani in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

The ceremony was part of the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Mid-West Ghana Conference of the SDA church which attracted numerous church members from the Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo regions and parts of the Northern Region. He attributed most of the infant mortalities to lack of qualified health personnel to supervise deliveries, adding "government health institutions alone cannot provide enough nurses to meet the needs of the country's health sector and it is against this background that we commend the SDA Church for its decision to establish a nurses training institution here in Sunyani to complement what we already have."

The Vice President commended the SDA Church for providing health, educational and potable water in many communities through the Adventist Development and Relief Agency(ADRA) and called on other churches to embark on similar efforts to supplement government's "Better Ghana Agenda". Pastor Fred Agyei-Baah, the out-going President of the SDA Mid-West Ghana Conference, said the Church would soon embark on affordable housing programme in Sunyani to help solve the acute accommodation problems in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

He said the Church had also formed 26 farming groups to embrace government's Youth in Agriculture programme and called on government to assist them with machinery. Mr Kwadwo Nyamekye Marfo, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, commended the SDA for inspiring many Christians in the country through their choir and creative gospel music and called on them to use the same inspiration to dissuade many more from moral decadence.