The Nadowli-Kaleo District Assembly has expressed total commitment towards expanding the health coverage within its jurisdiction.
The move is to ensure that all residents in the district, irrespective of their location are able to access healthcare from health professionals in well-equipped centres.
In line with this, work on three CHPS compounds has begun at Ombo-Kaaha, Papu and Dapuah all in Nadowli-Kaleo.
The Assembly has also funded the construction of a Neonatal and Intensive Care Unit, (NICU), along with a Kangaroo Mother Care, (KMC), unit at the District Hospital.
The DCE for Nadowli-Kaleo, Katherine Teiyirr Lankono shared these developments at a recent Meet the Press Series in Nadowli.
Madam Lankono said it is only appropriate that residents in her district are able to access quality healthcare, which is why the Assembly is committed to improving infrastructure.
She said under her watch, the staff number in the health sector has seen tremendous improvement disclosing that “a total of 60 health staff have been posted to the District Health Administration comprising Commmunity Health Nurses, Enrolled Nurses, Registered General Nurses, Midwives and Registered Community Mental health Nurses to render professional services to enhance health delivery in the district and it environs”.
Commenting on “Meet The Press Series”, Madam Lankono admitted that it provides a platform for information sharing from government to the people.
She added the move forms part of government’s efforts at “deepening participatory democracy and offering opportunities and accountability to its citizens at the district level as well as soliciting feedback from citizens on the impact of government policies and programmes”.
Touching on access to Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities, the DCE said in partnership with the stakeholders in the sector, 113 communities out of the overall 141 communities in the district have attained an Open Defecation Free (ODF) status.
With this achievement in mind, the DCE expressed confidence that it is possible to achieve a 100 percent ODF status before end of 2019.
Madam Lankono admitted the district is yet to fully take advantage of natural products like shea and ‘dawadawa’. This is why proposals have been written to stakeholders in the agriculture value chain to partner with the District Assembly to build factories to add value to the natural resources.
On Education, over 300 desks have been provided to a number of schools by the Assembly to help make teaching and learning easier.
The DCE mentioned that there has a general improvement in the educational sector in 2019.
Madam Lankono disclosed that more than 96 percent of the District School Age Population can access primary education within a distance of about 4 and 5 kilometres.
She said: “the implementation of the Free Senior High is on course. All first and second year students numbering 3,127 in the four public Senior High Schools and one TVET in the district are benefitting from the policy”.
The Upper West Regional Minister commended the media for their support towards achieving the goals of the Meet the Press Series.
He was however, unhappy with the constant criticism of government appointees by some media practitioners.
“I also made an observation and I think that that is how all journalists should behave. Journalism is not about criticizing. When you have an issue, you need to critique; and I believe you know the difference between critiquing an issue and then to criticize [an issue]. When an appointee is doing well, nothing stops a journalist from coming out to say that appointee “A” and “B” is doing a yeoman’s job.”
The Minister continued to say “you can commend the person and then go ahead, if you have issues with the person, you table them. But if day in day out, as a journalist it is your stock-in-trade to be criticizing an appointee, what comes to mind is that you either hate that appointee or you are jealous or envious of that person”.
Story filed by Mark Smith
