FIFA 11 for Health Kicks off in the Upper West Region

Some selected Basic schools in the Upper west region are set to benefit from the ongoing FIFA 11 for Health Project after its commencement on Monday January 11, 2016.

The five day interactive programme will see participants schooled on how to use football as a medium of relaying health related information to their pupils.

The global outreach project from FIFA is heading to the region for the first time despite its presence in the country in the last four years.

The educative project is aimed at equipping the Basic school teachers on how to feast on the affiliation of the school children to football in relaying healthy living conditions.

The project scheduled for January 11-15 will see the teachers armed with an eleven week long project with school kids on completion.

The global out reach project will see over 80 schools in the region represented in its maiden edition slated at the Wa sports stadium.

Regional Football Association (RFA)chairman Alhaji Sadugu Yahaya commended the organisers for the project and tasked the teachers to relay the message across to the pupils.

“The most important thing is for the teachers to get the message across and deliver it as recieved from the tutors. It is a global project and must be embraced with all the needed attention and mindset.

It is our first time of getting its taste but we hope it continues with larger numbers in the subsequent years. Thanks to the organisers the upper west region has been factored in”, Alhaji Yahaya revealed.

The fourth edition of the project was launched in December last year by four times African Footballer of the year Samuel Eto ahead of the January kick offs across the nation.

FIFA 11 for Health Kicks off in the Upper West Region

Former NHIA boss in BNI grips

The immediate past Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Sylvester Mensah is being held at the headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for questioning.

Mr. Mensah, who reported at the BNI office today[Friday], was invited by the director of the BNI on Wednesday through a phone call but was in the Volta Region for a visit.

Citi News gathers a meeting was scheduled for Thursday 31st December 2015, when the former NHIA boss was expected to have arrived in Accra, but in an interesting twist, seven heavily armed officials from the national investigative body, invaded his residence on New Year’s Eve ostensibly to arrest him.

The BNI began investigations into the issue  of false claims by some 10 suspected medical facilities which have already resulted in the arrest of some five officials at the NHIA headquarters with three of them sent to court to be remanded while the other two granted bail.

The security investigative body some weeks ago also picked seventeen directors and deputy directors of the Authority in relation to the same matter.

The investigations began six months ago at the instance of the President John Mahama and according to the BNI, many of the medical facilities have been falsifying documents and submitting bloated claims to the NHIA and in some cases colluded with officials of the NHIA to defraud the Authority.

Meanwhile some supporters of the NDC are accusing some senior officials at the Flagstaff house of deliberately witch hunting Mr. Mensah because of his suitability and increasing support by the rank and file of the NDC to be chosen as running mate to president Mahama before the announcement of Vice President Kwesi Amissah Arthur as running mate for the 2016 election.

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Source: citifmonline.com

Former NHIA boss in BNI grips

Ghana"s Health Sector In Danger

A total of 500 midwives are due to retire from active service across the country’s public health institutions, a situation health authorities fear would have dire consequences on health delivery.

 

 

Ghana currently does not have enough midwives in the country, particularly in the rural areas, which has affected reproductive and maternal health.

 

 

The Ghana Health Service is currently taking steps to ensure that the 500 midwives in public health institutions who are due for retirement, are retained until replacements are found.

 

 

“The challenge that we are facing is that 500 midwives between this year and next year are going on pension and so we’ve written to the government to help us to retain them where they are as we accelerate the production of more midwives,” Dr. Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira told TV3.

 

 

Dr. Appiah-Denkyira who is the Director General of the Ghana Health Service in the meantime is urging the private sector to save the situation by absorbing those midwives who will be retiring, indicating that Ghana needs them badly.

 

 

“Ghana needs the people but the ability to engage them is the problem because of the financial ceiling. The World Bank came and saw that the government has become the major employer and for a country that is developing into a middle country status, it should not be,” he noted.

 

 

He said the Service has resolved to deploy midwives to the various CHP compounds which were hitherto manned by Community Health nurses. “The CHIPS used to have only community health nurses but now we say there should be a midwife there because studies have shown us that if you place the midwife close to the people as possible, mortality is curtailed,” he stated.

 

 

A 2010 statistics puts the midwife-patient ratio one is to 7,200. The statistics also showed Ghana needs an additional 8,000 midwives to fill the gap if maternal health is to be developed to an appreciable standard.

 

 

Midwives play a crucial role towards the achievement of national goals and targets in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health.

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tv3network.com

Ghana"s Health Sector In Danger