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USAID donates to health Volunteers
Accra, Nov. 14, Ghanadot/GNA - The United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) on Friday donated 1,000
bicycles and 1,000 carrier bags equipped with essential
health supplies to the Ministry of Health (MoH) to
facilitate the work of the Ministry’s community health
volunteers.
The supplies in the bags included insecticide-treated bed
nets, family planning commodities, counselling cards and
oral rehydration salt (ORS) to be distributed in the 30
USAID project districts in the seven southern regions of
Ghana, which falls under a five year cooperative agreement
signed between MOH through the Population Council and USAID
in 2004.
The donation directly goes to support the Ministry’s
Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) project
which USAID was supporting through the CHPS Technical
Assistance Project (CHPS-TA) with a grant of 15.5 million
dollars.
Mr. David Attebery, Mission Director, USAID said the
equipment was part of USA’s bilateral commitment to improve
the health status of Ghanaians, especially basic health care
in rural underserved communities where health facilities
were far apart and most people had to travel long distances
to the nearest health facility.
“With this impressive community ownership and USAID support,
we are witnessing an ever-increasing number of women,
children and men in rural population seeking treatment with
the community health officer. Volunteers are visiting homes,
educating families about malaria prevention and
environmental sanitation, Mr Atteberry noted.
He expressed the hope the donation would help improve
mobility of volunteers to effectively deliver basic health
care services to deprived communities.
Health Minister, Major Courage Quashigah (Rtd) urged
district directors of health to implement the planned
preventive maintenance programme of the Ministry to ensure
regular maintenance of the bicycles and motorcycles.
“This is the only way we can ensure that the donation would
continue to be beneficial to the people of Ghana”, he said.
GNA
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