The Minister of Health Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has assured the international community of the government’s commitment to drastically reduce maternal death cases, following robust systems put in place to ensure safe pregnancy and delivery.

He said although the country has witnessed an extreme reduction in maternal death cases since 1988, the government is massively investing in the health sector to ensure zero deaths during childbirth.

In a speech read on his behalf at the opening ceremony of the general membership meeting of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (RHSC) last week Friday in Accra, the Minister said, that between 2020 and 2022, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and its partners provided about $14.4 million worth of Family Planning Products (FPP) in the country.

The partners he mentioned were the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Global Fund and the West African Health Organisation (WAHO).

“Beyond this, they have continuously accompanied us on this journey through technical assistance and mentoring to make sure women have access to a variety of family planning services.

These collaborations, combined with our sustained commitment, have resulted in significant demographic shifts, notably a marked decline in births per woman [(total births per woman reduced from 6.4 in 1988 to 4.2 in 2014 (GDHS)] and reductions in household size [(4.4 in 2010 to 3.6 in 2021- (2021 Population and Housing Census” Agyemang-Manu said.

He said the Ministry of Health’s National E-Health Project, featuring the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) has gained strong prospects.

He explained that the project was a centralized health-data repository ensuring the availability of patient records across the healthcare continuum.

Mr Agyemang-Manu said the project had enhanced patient record portability across all healthcare facilities on the platform, eliminated paper patient folders, reduced container and storage space costs, and reduced patient waiting times between 35-40 per cent.

The RHSC Executive Committee Member Madam Nene Fofana-Cisse thanked member countries for their unwavering commitments to ensuring lives are protected during childbirth.

She said the meeting was to dialogue brainstorm and examine COVID-19’s impact on funding for reproductive health supplies and related markets and supply chains, drawing lessons from how the sector responded, and celebrating its unique resilience.

BY BERNARD BENGHAN