Ga East Health Directorate-private health facilities collaborate to enhance healthcare delivery

The Ga East Municipal Health Directorate has convened a landmark meeting with representatives of private healthcare providers to foster collaboration and understanding among public-private healthcare facilities.

This initiative is expected to facilitate the consolidation of data from both the public and private facilities to help improve healthcare delivery in the Municipality.

The event which took place at the School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences Conference Room at Atomic - Kwabenya, on Tuesday, 9th January, 2024, marked a pivotal moment in the relationship between private providers and the Municipal Health Directorate.

There are 34 private health facilities identified in the Municipality with 23 of them actively providing health service data.

Representatives of 27 facilities were present at the meeting.

The participants had the opportunity to acquaint themselves with fellow providers, engage with the Health Directorate Staff, and aligned their goals with the Greater Accra Regional Health Directorate’s shared vision for 2024, “Improving performance and health outcomes through partnerships and excellence in health service delivery”.

Key facets of the meeting included presentations on a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, the importance of participating in disease surveillance, and the contribution of private facilities to selected health performance indicators.

Data shared during the meeting revealed that as of November, 2023, private providers had attended to 129,263 individuals, representing 61.4% of Municipal outpatient attendance.

Furthermore, they referred 2,420 women for antenatal services, representing 42.2% and supervised 39.8% of deliveries in the Municipality.

Issues highlighted during the general discusdions included challenges with the Blackfly invasion at Kponkpo, delays in obtaining TB testing results, and difficulties accessing reports from electronic medical records in some facilities.

In a resolution, the private facilities pledged to achieve 100% reporting of data for all services in 2024 and committed to collaborative efforts by referring clients within the Municipality.

Dr.(Med) Selorm Kutsoati, the Ga Municipal Director of Health Service, behalf of her team, assured ongoing support, including logistics, training opportunities, supportive supervision, and quarterly updates on healthcare performance indicators.

She expressed gratitude to all participants for their valuable contributions and affirmed the commitment to organising more such meetings in the future, emphasising the importance of sustained collaboration for improving healthcare services in the Ga East Municipality.