by Wisdom Dzidedi Donkor

The Ghana Health Service has taken delivery of 25 mobile health boats for the use of its Transport Management Unit to facilitate the health care services in riverine areas across the country.

At a formal commissioning of the boats at Ada on Thursday, Dr. Elias Sory, Director- General of the Ghana Health Service said his outfit in conjunction with other developing partners, such as UNICEF, USAID, DFID and Rotary have seen the need to use transportation by boat as the best means by which quality health service could be made accessible to island dwellers.

According to him, focus has been placed on the Volta Basin due to a number of health issues, especially, the wild poliovirus. He said in 2003, two out of every eight wild poliovirus was traced to communities along the waterways across the country.

He explained that many of these communities are cut off from the rest of the country by high water level for most part of the year. They are therefore unintentionally neglected during EPI and NIDs campaigns. "One can imagine the great harm such continued unintentional negligence would have on the health of our people", he said.

The Director-General further explained that there are no health centres on any of these islands yet they do not get any meaningful outreach health care services as many of them rely heavily on drug peddlers, herbalists, and untrained TBAs.

"Health care services such as clinical care, antenatal and postnatal cares, immunization, disease surveillance, family planning, treatment of bilharzias and vitamin A supplementation are but some of the services our people are being denied for no other reason than they leaving on islands", he explained.

He noted that it is for the above reasons that the boats, which are all insured, have been bought so as to bring health care close to the people and appealed to all stakeholders to take very good care of the boats.

Nene Tsatsu Pediator IV, chief of Pediatorkope, expressed appreciation to the ministry of health for remembering them. He explained how his people suffer from several ailments without the needed health care because of their location, saying it was a big relief to be part of the numerous beneficiaries of the project.

He also expressed gratitude to health workers who accept postings to their areas, despite the hardship of the place.

Dr. Justice Hoffman, the Dangme East District Health Director in his welcome address noted that the district is one of the most deprived in the region, which lacks everything, including staff of various MDAs.

According to him, as a result of the Mutual Health Insurance Scheme, OPD attendance has increased by 40%, which has improved financial access in most of the health facilities.

He gave the assurance that the mobile service would go a long way to help his outfit improve upon its services to the people. "We are going to increase geographical access and further improve intervention programmes, including Tuberculosis, Malaria and HIV/AIDS to mention just a few", he said.

Mr. Benjamin Quaye, Production Engineer, Duratech Fibre Glass Ltd., the Takoradi based manufacturers of the fibreglass boats, told the Public Agenda they have most of their boats on the Volta Lake, which is well known as one of the most dangerous sources of water transportation.

According to him, the 25-sitting capacity boats have been tested and approved by the Ghana Navy and are fully equipped with life jackets, lifebuoy, compass, binoculars, fire extinguishers, anchors etc to be able to stand any eventuality.

"If our boats are able to sail on the Volta Lake for the past decade without accident, I see no reason why we should worry about its safety on the Volta Basin", he explained.