A refurbished 32-foot fibre-glass boat to help health personnel in the Kwahu Afram Plains North District to undertake visits to the islands in the district is idling on the shores of the Volta Lake at Amankwa Tornu.
This is because the district health directorate is not able to fuel the boat for the outreach programmes, thereby denying those communities of quality healthcare.
Out of the 372 communities in the district, 224, representing about two-thirds of the total population of the district, are located in hard-to-reach areas such as the Dwarf and Didza islands.
Since August 2013, two of such boats which were used for the outreach programmes had been in very bad condition and that compelled the district health directorate to suspend such programmes until August 2014 when one of the boats was refurbished after a publication by the Daily Graphic that the people in those communities were denied quality healthcare.
However, since the refurbishment of the boat, the health directorate is not able to put it to maximum use because it is not able to afford the premix fuel to power the boat.
For instance, there are two major islands, the Dwarf and Didza islands, and three minor ones, namely the Kyekyekpo, Ntonaboma and Abomasarefro islands, which can only be reached by boats.
The district health directorate requires 2,500 litres of premix fuel monthly to be able to offer quality health service to those communities.
In addition, the directorate requires allowances for those who will have to be on the island for a week or more to undertake the outreach programmes.
Outreach programmes
Outreach programmes expected to be carried out in those islands include the administration of critical healthcare services such as childhood immunisation, surveillance, home-based care programmes and the distribution of bed nets.
“Unfortunately, because we are unable to get funding to buy the premix fuel, one only gets the chance to go to the islands when there is a national programme.”
“For example, when there is a National Immunisation Day (NID) against polio, measles or yellow fever campaign, then one rides on the back of such national programmes to go and render services to children there, especially the immunisation and minor treatments.”
“So, without those national programmes on hand, we are unable to go there because there is no funding to buy the premix fuel for the monthly outreach campaigns,” the District Disease Control Officer, Mr Albert Ewe, told the Daily Graphic during a visit to the shore where the boat is kept.
He noted that those communities were not enjoying quality health services as expected, adding. “They are not benefiting from the health services that they need to,” which is of concern to the health directorate in the district.
Mr Ewe, however, rejected the assertion that the boat had been rendered redundant and explained that it was the one the district health directorate used recently for the National Immunisation Day programme on the islands.
Refurbished works
Touching on the refurbished works done, the Human Resource Officer of the district health directorate, Mr Christian Nutsigah, explained that the refurbishment took two weeks to complete. It was done by Team Work Power Boat Ltd.
He explained that the directorate submitted a proposal to the company for the refurbishment of two boats, which was estimated at GH¢20,082.03,“but as of the time we got the money to refurbish the two, the dollar rate had gone up so we proposed the refurbishment of one.”
Mr Nutsigah said the refurbishment was important and could not be described as “redundant”, adding that anytime fuel was available the team visited those communities.
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