The Bongo and Kassena-Nankana West District Directorates of the Ghana Health Service have received sanitation and hygiene materials and Personal Protective Equipment to boost their efforts at preventing infection at health facilities.

The items valued at about GH?170,000.00 included carbolic soap, hand drying materials, surgical gloves, medical masks, sanitary pads, laboratory coats, hand sanitizers, safety box, chlorine solutions, leak proof bags, disposable long sleeves gowns, long brushes, water proof aprons, tissue paper, mops, brooms, bleach, dustbins among others.

The gesture was by WaterAid Ghana, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) focused organisation under the five-year project dubbed ‘Sexual Health and Reproductive Education (SHARE) funded by Global Affairs Canada.

The implementation of the project is by a consortium led by Right to Play, Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), WaterAid Ghana and FHI360 with the aim of creating enabling environment for adolescents to access sexual and
reproductive health services.

The project is being rolled out in four districts in the Upper East Region namely Kassena-Nankana and Builsa North Municipalities and Kassena-Nankana West and Bongo Districts.

Presenting the items to management of the two health directorates at Bongo, Mr Gilbert Asante, the Project Coordinator, WaterAid Ghana, indicated that their role in the project implementation was to ensure that the health facilities were conducive for young people to access health services particularly regarding their sexual life.

‘So, we are focusing on preventing infections, building capacity of health workers to understand global standards of infection prevention and so have trained some health workers on infection prevention, waste management, menstrual hygiene among others,’ he said.

He said the donation of items which was second of its kind under the project after the two municipalities received similar gestures last year, was to contribute to making sanitation and hygiene materials accessible at
the facilities to enable health worker practise infection prevention and control behaviour.

The Project Coordinator said under the SHARE project, eight youth friendly corners would be created within the operational health facilities in the four operational districts to promote adolescents’ access to accurate sexual and reproductive health information to help them make informed decisions.

‘We will also provide the health facilities with incinerators and each district will get one. We are also putting in place toilet facilities and a minimum of eight toilet facilities and we are going to do the WaterAid standards because we want the young people to feel comfortable when they visit the health facilities,’ he added.

Receiving the items, Mrs Estella Abazesi, the Bongo District Director, Ghana Health Service, expressed gratitude to WaterAid Ghana and its partners for the support over the years and gave the assurance that the materials would be distributed to the health facilities and be used for the intended pur
poses.

She said most of the health facilities lacked most of the materials donated making it difficult to practise the required standard of infections prevention and control and added that the gesture would help improve quality of health care delivery in general.

On his part, Mr Alhassan Lawal, the Kassena-Nankana West District Director of the Ghana Health Service, said the district was among the areas with the highest prevalence of teenage pregnancy and noted that creating youth friendly environments would help motivate young people to seek services at the health facilities to prevent them from getting pregnant.

Source: Ghana News Agency