Tarkwa Nsuaem: CHPS compound running ‘double track’ system with Information Centre
Health workers at a community-based health planning and services (CHPS) compound at Essaman Kakraba in the Tarkwa Nsuaem municipality of the Western region are running a shift system with the community’s Information center in order to provide health services to patrons.
The Municipal Health Authorities have not been able to decouple the CHPS compound from the Information Center for lack of funds.
The CHPS compound serves more than four adjoining communities but only primary health needs are catered for by staff.
Located in the heart of the Essaman Kakraba community, the facility plays a crucial role in the administration of healthcare but is faced with a myriad of challenges.
The CHPS compound which also serves as an information center is overstretched.
Few patients are attended to at the facility due to the lack of space.
Provision of healthcare and the running of the information center are done on shift basis because the CHPS compound also hosts the community’s Information center.
The cubicle-nature health facility serves as the Information center from 5am to 8am daily and is converted to a health facility from 8am.
The facility also remains a market place where drug peddlers come to transact business, information reaching The Ghana Report indicates.
The practice has been the norm for four years, we are told.
Chief of the Essaman Kakraba, Nana Kweku Djan says proceeds from the usage of the facility as an Information center are used to support social intervention projects in the area hence the difficulty in halting the practice.
Head of the Essaman Kakraba CHPS compound, Stella Ohene Ntow expressed worry about the development but said there was little the health professionals in the community could do.
Donkor Lucas is a regular user of the Information center. He comes to the facility to market his wares. He is against any move to fully convert the facility into a health facility.
“This is where we also derive our daily bread and it would be unfair to truncate our operations after we have paid money to use the information center,” he said.
Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Health Director, Emmanuel Yaw Affail Kum is however confident of complementing the community’s effort to transform the health sector.
According to him, they depend on the municipal assembly for funds to address key challenges facing healthcare delivery in the area since the health directorate does not internally generate funds.
“Tarkwa Nsuaem has infrastructural deficit in the health sector and would require support,” he added.
Ghana became a signatory to the United Nations after ratifying its conventions.
As a result, the country is obliged to work towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals relating to healthcare delivery.