Nadowli District Health Directorate chalks successes in disease control

The Nadowli District Health Directorate has reduced cerebro spinal meningitis (CSM) from 21 cases in the first quarter of 2011 to six cases within the same period this year.

With intensified education, people now report early when they experience symptoms of the disease.

There has also been a reduction in infant deaths caused by malaria from 17cases in 2010 to nine cases in 2011 while coverage on childhood vaccination against tuberculosis increased from 74.3 per cent to 92 per cent in 2011.

Mr. Abu Kansangbata, the Nadowli District Chief Executive, told members of the assembly at its first ordinary meeting at the weekend that no guinea worm cases had been recorded in the district for the past three years.

Many women are also attending health facilities to deliver babies but the health directorate still faces challenges of human resource constraints in the area of critical staff such as doctors, midwives and physicians assistants.

Mr. Kansangbata said some Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compounds and health centres have no furniture, water and electricity and toilet facilities.

He said delay in execution of some health projects at Gbankor, doctor’s quarters at Daffiama and the renovation of Challa CHPS and Nadowli Hospital, inadequate staff accommodation and inadequate support for student midwives as well as deplorable conditions in some health facilities were undermining quality healthcare delivery in the district.

On agriculture, Mr. Kansangbata said the District Agricultural Development Unit (DADU) has been given the mandate to recruit some extension staff for the unit to improve the extension agent farmer ratio in the district.

He expressed regret about the poor recovery of loans given out to farmers under the Northern Rural Growth Programme and appealed to the assembly members to help recover the loans.

Mr. Kansangbata said he had received several protests from nine communities in the district about their communities not benefiting from the rural electrification project.

Some of the assembly members complained about soft standard high tension poles being used in some of the communities by the contractors undertaking the rural electrification project and called for investigation.

Others also expressed misgivings about the ownership of the motorbikes that the government provided them and appealed to government to come out clear on the issue.**