By Samuel Duodu, Brosankro
THE Tano South District Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has organised a community health durbar at Brosankro, a farming community with a call on the chiefs and people of the area to help fight against the spread of Tuberculosis (TB) and the deadly HIV/AIDS in the community.
The people were also educated on communicable diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea, Schistosomiasis and lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and substance abuses, the need to keep their environment clean, as well as on government policies such as free maternal care, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and free immunisation services.
According to statistics made available to Graphic Nsempa at the durbar, the Tano South district with its capital as Bechem in the Brong Ahafo Region, recorded a total of 24 TB cases last year, with four of them from Brosankro.
Out of the four TB cases reported from Brosankro, two of the patients were cured while two died as a result of ignorance about the disease.
The District Disease Control Officer on TB control and management, Mr Amofa Boateng therefore called on Nananom and the people to support and encourage members of the community they suspected to have the disease, to seek early treatment rather than subject them to public ridicule, that would make them hide instead of coming out for treatment.
He announced that TB was a curable disease and its treatment was free and available in all government hospitals as well as some mission hospitals.
Besides that, he said the ministry of health had instituted enablers’ package (financial support) for TB patients and their supporters to ensure that patients reported regularly for their TB medicines and any other services they needed.
Mr Boateng also urged mothers to have their babies vaccinated with BCG as early as possible to protect them against TB.
The District Director of Health Services, Mr Bedima Duut in his address disclosed that, with support from the district assembly, the Ghana Health Service and the National AIDS Control Programme, some buildings have been renovated for use as health centres, to serve Brosankro and its surrounding communities.
He said while waiting for the formal inauguration of the health centre the directorate had posted a midwife and seven other staff to take care of the immediate health needs of the people.
Mr Duut disclosed that the centre would also offer free HIV/AIDS Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) services and urged the people to patronise the service to know their HIV/AIDS status.
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