Dr Samira Seidu Bogobiri, the Co-founder and Director of Cornerstone Medical Outreach (CMO), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) based in the Northern region, has proposed the need for rural communities in the country to have improved health facilities which could cater for all ailments of its members.
Dr Bogobiri, who is also a Family Physician Specialist at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), expressed worry over the quality of healthcare delivery to rural dwellers.
According to her, it was important that rural dwellers were provided with health facilities to improve access to healthcare which is a fundamental human right.
“When it comes to accessible and quality healthcare, people in the rural communities have been neglected because the Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) Compounds they have only take care of minor ailments and those with serious diseases are referred to urban health facilities which may lead to delays in seeking healthcare resulting in untimely deaths,” she said.
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Dr Bogobiri made these comments known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, when her NGO provided a free health screening for the people of Yankazia community in the Saboba District of the Northern region as part of efforts to improve good health and well-being and expand access to quality healthcare to people in deprived communities.
The medical outreach afforded the people an opportunity to have access to medical consultancy and other services such as screening for hypertension, diabetes, malaria, typhoid fever among other diseases.
She said “these CHPS Compounds do not have medical doctors to attend to many rural folks when they go for treatment. More worrying is the fact that when they are diagnosed of major ailments and referred to bigger hospitals in the cities, they are unable to seek treatment because of poverty.”
Dr Bogobiri, therefore, called on the government and other stakeholders to prioritise the health concerns of people living in rural communities by upgrading the CHPS compounds to clinics in order to make basic and quality healthcare accessible to every Ghanaian.
This, according to her, will ensure that their health statuses are improved and by so doing they will live healthy and productive lives.
Apart from the health screening exercise, the NGO presented some shoes, clothing and food items to the people to support them to live happy lives.
Residents of the community expressed gratitude to the CMO team for the intervention, and appealed to other corporate bodies to help address their health needs.