Four district hospitals in the North East Region have benefited from the Newborn Care Unit through the benevolence of China-AID and UNICEF collaboration project.
The project dubbed ‘Fighting COVID-19 by Providing Health and Nutrition Services to Women and Children in the North East Region’, will help improve the quality of health service delivery especially for newborns in the Region.
At a short durbar to commission one of the four New Born Care Units at the Binde Hospital in the Bunkpurugu-Nakpanduri District, the Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Abdulai Abukari, said it will help increase the effective coverage of key evidence-based health and nutrition interventions to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on Maternal, New-born, and Child Health in the Region.
The four beneficiary district hospitals are Walewale Municipal Hospital, Baptist Medical Centre in Nalerigu, Chereponi Government Hospital and Binde hospital at Bunkpurugu. Prior to the establishment of these Newborn Care Units, the beneficiary Hospitals had to refer newborn babies with health problems to the Tamale Teaching Hospital.
Ailments such as Birth Asphyxia, Neonatal Jaundice, Neonatal Sepsis, Preterm Babies and Babies with low birth weight were all referred. As a result of the challenges, most mothers were reluctant to accept referrals resulting in undesirable outcomes for these new born babies.
The Project has therefore come at the right time when the new regions like North East were created and started functioning and needed all the support it could to perform.
The Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Abdulai Abukari, commended the CHINA-AID and UNICEF team for their immense support in addressing the health and nutritional challenges in the Region.
The Country Representative of UNICEF Madam Anne-Claire Dufay, said UNICEF is collaborating with the government and other Development Partners to ensure that children in Ghana survive, thrive and reach their full potential.
She said the Project is supporting the Ghana Health Service to reach 115,112 children, 128, 925 adolescents and 23,022 women in the North East Region.