POST 00888E : COMMUNITY HEALTH PLANNING

POST 00888E : COMMUNITY HEALTH PLANNING 14 February 2006 ___________________________________ This message is cross-posted, with some specific edition, from The Connection, a new discussion group hosted and moderated at WHO, devoted to training and human resources issues. To learn more about the group, please write to : [[email protected]][email protected][/email] It was received from J.Koku Awoonor (mailto:[email protected]) from Ghana. He is District Director of Health Service, Nkwanta Health Development Centre, Ghana Health Services. He kindly offers an update on Community Health Planning and Services achievements, in addition to the information you can find on their website (http://wwwghana-chps.org) and shares his concerns on the challenges to face. In addition, please find the paper that he presented, with three colleagues, to the meeting of the American Public Health Association, last December in Philadelphia, USA. Entitled "Rural immunization strategies in Nkwanta District, Ghana", it asks the question: "Do Community-based Health Planning and Services improve the chances of complete child immunization?" You can download the paper directly from : http://www.technet21.org/GhanaAPHAimmun ... er2005.doc (600K) And it was added to the list of various articles and background documents on the website: http://www.technet21.org/backgrounddocs.html ____________________________________ A few years ago, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has launched a programme for transforming clinic-based primary health care to community-based health services. Known as the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative, CHPS moves health services to community locations, develops sustainable volunteerism and community health action, empowers women and vulnerable groups, and improves health provider, household and community interaction. While community-based health service delivery has been viewed as an effective strategy in making basic health services accessible to all Ghanaians, the appropriate means of implementing this goal has been the subject of considerable discussion and debate. "On the CHPS front, a lot has been achieved and there is still substantial effort currently on going in terms of advocacy for districts to take the initiative forward. The Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) initiative as a strategy to deliver the community level service is a key health system reform for the Health Sector in general and the Ghana Health Service in particular. The levels of health care provision has been clearly defined and articulated in the GHS and Teaching Hospitals ACT, 1996 (ACT 525). As a country, we have, over the years, concentrated on improving service delivery at the Hospital and Health Centres by investing in constructing health facilities, since independence, hoping that the presence of these facilities will lead to an increase in uptake of health services. However, our OPD attendances are stagnating, maternal mortality, child mortality and morbidity remains high. There is little or no community participation in health decision making. If the health sector is to achieve the health Millennium Development Goals' in Ghana, then there is the need for a drastic shift in the paradigm of service provision. CHPS provide us with that vehicle of paradigm shift to deliver the community level service by engaging communities in taking decisions concerning their own health and recognizing that the primary producers of health are the individuals within households - especially mothers. It is the goal and vision of the Ghana Health Service to see that all households have access to community-based service delivery by 2015. Health Centres and Hospitals will then provide referral services and backstopping for this level of service delivery. Two documents - CHPS Operational Policy and CHPS National Strategic Plan - have been produced to provide policy direction as well as strategic guidance for rolling out CHPS especially for Sub-district Health Teams, District Health Management Teams, Regional Health Management Teams, Divisions and our Development Partners (See list of documents by clicking on the "articles" button on the site homepage. As my Director General puts it the last time, "CHPS is no longer an option for any district health management teams, it is the key to attaining universal coverage and as such must be operationalised. There has been a number of challenges and this has mainly to do with 3 key areas namely human resource challenges, service delivery policy reforms and infrastructure and logistics constraints. The pace of implementation undoubtedly has been slow as we do not have the required number of health professionals - community health nurses in this case to fill all our CHPS compounds; for instance we will require over 6000 CHNs to fully roll out CHPS but currently we have just about 2000, we need to outline changes in our HR policies that support CHPS, we need to match up demand pattern to match supply and more importantly increase intake into our pre service training schools. These are just a few of the challenges we face and as you see the issue of human resource for health still comes in and is important..." J. Koku AWOONOR ______________________________________________________________________________ _____________ Visit the TECHNET21 Website at http://www.technet21.org You will find instructions to subscribe, a direct access to archives, links to reference documents and other features. ______________________________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to : mailto:[email protected] Leave the subject area BLANK In the message body, write unsubscribe TECHNET21E ______________________________________________________________________________ The World Health Organization and UNICEF support TechNet21. The TechNet21 e-Forum is a communication/information tool for generation of ideas on how to improve immunization services. 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