NGO appeals to leaders to get involved in immunization programme

The Concern Health Education Project (CHP), an NGO, has called on the country’s leaders, especially the Ministers, to be highly involved in the immunization programme and ensure adequate domestic financing for the exercise.

The organisation said there was the need to place emphasis on geographic equity in access to immunization and to ensure that all districts and communities improve on surveillance and data quality.

Mr Isaac Ampomah, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CHP made the call at an outreach programme to interact with families of head porters (kayayei) at Tema Station and encouraged them to visit the designated health post built for all informal workers in the market.

The programme was part of the ongoing Health System Strengthening GAVI supported projects in the country to monitor the response of head porters on a routine basis for vaccination of their under five children.

The Concern Health Education Volunteers targeted population of under five children and pregnant mothers, educated nursing mothers, and fathers on the importance of child immunization and mobilized them to the nearby health centres for their wards and children’s due vaccinations routines.

He said the NGO was working with the health staff at the Tema Station CHPs centre, a satellite immunization area designated within the Osu Klotey Sub-metro of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly of the Greater Accra Region to promote immunization uptake in the communities.

The CEO called for the need to integrate immunization programme into the general health system development and for donors to give greater priority to integrated health system.

Mr Ampomah recommended the creation of more satellite zones in the communities to track defaulter cases of under five years’ children’s immunisation.

He said motor bicycle and public address mega phone and Vans be made available for health workers and NGO volunteers to use in their mobilization.
Mr Ampomah noted that their outfit after engagement with the Head Porters observed that livelihood issues and the struggle for financial opportunities to feed their families compelled the mothers to migrate from other parts of Ghana to the south (Accra).

The organisation also observed that these women and their men gives little attention to their babies putting the health of the children at risk and lack of an adequate number of frontline health workers directly affected immunization.

“Further poor infrastructure and weaker capacities of the health worker with its accompanying logistic constraints affects the uptake of immunization services and general health care services at the district levels,” he added.

He said cultural practices have affected low coverage of immunization among the families, saying cultural beliefs and some religious practices of immunization hampers uptake of immunization services.

Mr Ampomah called for effective dialogue with the community key actors and called for the building of civil society organisations capacity to increase demand for immunization services.