The residents of Woloteng community in the Wa West District say pregnant women in the community are dying due to the lack of a health facility in the community for timely access to healthcare services.
They said that was because pregnant women had difficulty accessing antenatal, skilled delivery services as they had to trek several kilometres on deplorable roads to Vieri or Lassie Health Centre before they could access those services.
Madam Kuubire Sonere, a resident, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview, that they lost a woman in the community because she was in labour and could not get to the health facility on time to deliver.
“One woman was in labour and we struggled to get her to the health facility. By the time we got there, she could not deliver and die.
we had at least a CHPS compound (Community-Based Health Planning and Service) here maybe she would not have died”, she explained.
She also narrated an instance where her daughter-in-law was in labour and the ordeal she went through before she could get to the health facility to deliver.
My son’s wife was in labour and we were to go to the health facility. If not because someone volunteered to pick her up with his motor king to the health centre she would have given birth on the way.
When we got to the facility the baby was already coming out. The nurse came out and saw that, so he asked me to hold the baby”, Madam Sonere said.
The distressed-looking woman, therefore, stressed the need for a health facility in the Woloteng community to help mitigate the plight they go through on daily basis in accessing healthcare services, avoid preventable deaths, and bring relief to them, especially women, the aged, and children.
Mr James Na-enour, another resident, indicated that the lack of a health facility in the community had also posed a serious risk to children and the aged.
“We have Guoraa, Woloteng, and Najieyir communities around here that can benefit from the health facility. When a child falls sick, he can be rushed there for first aid.
When a child falls sick in school, the teachers must send him or her to the health facility at Vieri or Lassie before looking for the parents”, he explained.
The residents blamed their difficulty in accessing the health facilities in other communities on the poor nature of the roads and difficulty in accessing transport services in the community during emergencies.
Meanwhile, Ghana is a signatory to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and it’s required to contribute to reducing the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030.
It is also required to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under-five mortalities to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births by 2030.
Therefore, the government and development partners ought to put in more effort to ensure timely access to healthcare services by all persons irrespective of their geographical location.
