Find New Ways Of Improving Healthcare

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in health, have been asked to find new ways of doing things to assist improve on the quality of life of Ghanaians. Mrs Adelaide Addo-Fening, Vice Chairperson of STAR-Ghana Steering Committee, said they also needed to show pragmatism, scale up their activities and strengthen their linkages to achieve set targets. She was speaking at a two-day meeting held with their grant partners in Kumasi to deliberate on ways of promoting effective collaboration for increased access to quality health services. It also provided the platform to devise mechanisms for continued support to the health sector partners after a STAR-Ghana�s Programme comes to an end in 2015. The meeting brought together about 150 representatives from 30 organizations across the country and was held under the theme �Achieving better health service delivery-the use of innovation�. Some of the issues that came up for discussion, include �Innovations in health care, citizen�s mobilization and engagement�, �Use of technology to improve healthcare delivery� and �Health service design that ensures that the peculiar needs of socially excluded populations are provided for�. Mrs Addo-Fening spoke of the need for renewed commitment to mobilize and engage the people to enable them to express their opinions and make inputs on health sector policies, which affected them. She said the aim was to help improve access to quality healthcare, particularly the poor, socially excluded groups and those in deprived areas. STAR-Ghana has since January last year supported these 30 organizations, working in the health sector with a total of US$5 million, to undertake various initiatives and interventions.