The South Tongu District Assembly in collaboration with the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) and Ghana Health Service has organised a free health screening for residents in Adutor, Agbagorme and Fieve in the District to mark this year’s World AIDS Day.
More than 180 residents between the ages of 14 to 60 years checked their HIV status, hepatitis, malaria and blood pressure.
This year’s celebration, on the theme “communities, make the difference” was with the motive of getting every Ghanaian screened and informed about their HIV status.
Focal person for HIV in the District said the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Madam Helen Dzide was working towards eliminating stigmatisation associated with persons with HIV.
“We cannot continue to pay lip-service to the reality of HIV, there is the need for the media and other institutions to support GAC to help in the awareness creation about the existence and continues effects of HIV,” Madam Dzide said.
Midwife at the Adutor Health Centre, Madam Linda Dzifanu Segbefia, also said stigmatisation was still a major reason people found it difficult to come to the hospital willingly to check their HIV status and called for more to be done to eradicate stigmatization.
“We could not have registered this number of people for the screening if we were to be doing only HIV test here; everybody would have been scared of being stigmatised when seen on this compound today,” She said.
She asked the Commission to devise a new means of approaching and addressing the HIV menace and its stigmatisation.
Some residents told Ghana News Agency they were happy with the free screening by the Assembly, saying, “we find it difficult to go to the hospital because of the long queues and we are happy today the hospital was brought to our doorsteps with the same quality service.”
