HELP SAVE THE LIFE OF THIS JOURNALIST.

The health of Vincent Thomas Cann, one of the central regional correspondence for TV3 is in a critical condition and he is appealing to well wishers for help.
Our collegue journalsit has been diagnosed with end stage kidney. Currently,his life depends on weekly renal dialysis to save his kidneys until he is able to raise 50,000 ghana cedis ($5,000) for kidney transplant,an amount he is finding diffult to raise.
Thomas is on admission at the central regional hospital.

In a letter signed by Dr.Asante Awuku, the physician specialist, the hospital on behalf of Thomas will cherish any amount of donation to save the life of this once vibrant 28 years old journalist who now lays weak on his hospital bed due to ill health.
Every day counts and no contribution is too small.
For further questions or support, please contact the head of renal unit at the Central Regional Hospital-Ghana on
033209311063/ 0233244683388.

KOMFO ANOKYE MISSING BABY SAGA, A THREAT TO MDG 5.

One main component of curbing Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR)under the Millenium Development Goal(MDG5)set by the United Nations in 1990, is to attain universal reproductive health by 2015 as well as reducing by three quarter the MMR. By this target,every woman especially pregnant women irrespective of their location must have access to antenatal and post natal care. That is, women who rely on orthodox and traditional way of meeting their health needs will all embrace skilled and professional health care delivery.
In view of this, several projects have been laid down since Ghana signed the Charter including advocacy programs to ensure more women turn to the clinics and hospitals when the need be.

However the recent missing baby saga at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi may pose a threat to this target as women seems to be loosing confidence in professional health care. The out break of this story has sparked conversation about how patients are treated in some of these hospital. Everyone we interviewed seems to have a bitter experience one way or the other.
What makes the situation worrying is that each story told reveals gross neglect on the parts some of these trained and skilled health personnel who should know better...one common complained shared was the bad manners and harsh tone some nurse use when talking to patients.

In most of these public hospitals, the rights of pregnant women are often relegated to the background. she is denied the right of having a company be it a friend or a relative in the delivery room with the excuse that there are no enough room to accommodate any guest. This kind of situation gives rooms for suspicion in still birth and other complications.

Contrary to what happens in private clinics, patients are treated with outermost care and respect because it is usually the rich who visit such clinics. Ironically, majority of the workers in these private clinics have second jobs in the public centers but creates different environment for patients.
So those who can not afford these expensive clinics are left at the mercy of such unprofessional nurses who are dragging the name of this noble profession into the mud.

In 2010, Ghana recoreded 350 dead cases out of 100,000 live birth from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management excluding accidental or incidental causes. This is according to CIA world factbook. Comparing to the developed world, a woman's life time risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 3800. Being pregnant in the developed world doesn't pose much risk because, access to health is made available to all without any discrimination.


RECAP


The Ministry of Health has directed the doctor and nurse under whose supervision a still-born baby was declared missing to proceed on leave.

The unfortunate incident which took place at the Akomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi about two weeks ago was triggered when a Muslim lady by name Suwaiba put to birth in the said hospital and demanded for the body of her baby after she was told it was a still- birth.

The inability of the hospital officials to produce the corps of Suwaiba's dead baby reportedly led to someyouth from the Muslim community(zongo youths) taking the law into their own hands, invading the hospital and subsequently assaulting some of the health workers.

The doctors and nurses in anger and in fear of further attacks withdrew their services for about a week. They returned only after several appeals and promises of increased police presence to secure the hospital and their private homes.

Suwaiba allegedly demanded the body of her baby in order to bury him in accordance with her Islamic traditions but all efforts to retrieve the body proved futile although she had earlier been made to thumb print a document confirming the death of her baby..

According to some nurses at the KATH, an orderly, hired only two weeks before the incident, picked the baby with instructions to take it to the morgue but a search at the mortuary revealed the body had not been deposited there. Nurses say the orderly initially claimed he incinerated the body of the baby but the hospital authorities have denied the claim saying the incinerator had not been used in several days.

The Kumasi Police after some investigations are reported to have arrested seven unidentified people believed to be staff of the same hospital with stealing and conspiracy to steal a baby. The Hospital authorities have promised to liaise with the police to get to the bottom of the matter.

EMPOWERING WOMEN WILL END HUNGER..WFP

Every year, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) provides more than eleven million schoolgirls with food to help keep them in education and around three million vulnerable women with special nutritional support. This year, on International Women’s Day (March 8), WFP is celebrating how empowering women can boost global efforts to end hunger.

“Giving women the power to make choices over their lives is one of the first steps towards a world with zero hunger,” said WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin. “In every country where WFP works, women are front and centre in programmes to tackle the problems of food insecurity and undernutrition. We work with women farmers, traders, nutrition workers, school cooks and we serve millions of schoolgirls, pregnant women and nursing mothers.”

This year’s United Nations theme for International Women’s Day stresses that “Equality for women is progress for all.” One example of a WFP programme that focuses on women’s advancement is Purchase for Progress, or P4P, an initiative that helps smallholder farmers, particularly women, become competitive players in the marketplace by producing food for sale and use in WFP programmes.

In Ghana, almost half of the 1,500 smallholder farmers participating in the P4P initiative are women. In northern Ghana, where women traditionally reap, thresh and process rice for sale using tedious manual methods of parboiling, P4P has provided farmer groups with rice threshers and reapers as well as semi-mechanized parboilers to ease the physical burden of their work.


By using the tools provided by WFP, smallholder women farmers like Afeshetu Sumani, who lives in the village of Kpalsi in Tamale region, have drastically reduced the amount of time they spend parboiling rice, from three hours to 30 minutes. No longer exposed to the intense heat and stinging smoke she had to endure using traditional methods, Afeshetu feels empowered to produce more.

With support from other partners including UN Women, Women in Agricultural

Development of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and FAO, WFP has developed a P4P Gender action plan to address the specific challenges women face. WFP is targeting to train over 700 women this year.

“WFP has strong partners who provide women farmers with training in areas that they have identified themselves to improve their ability to compete in the marketplace, including food fortification, literacy and time management,” said Pippa Bradford, WFP Representative and Country Director. “Listening to their needs has been key to P4P’s success in Ghana.”

A report by WFP’s sister agency the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that closing the gender gap in agriculture by giving women farmers more resources could bring the number of hungry people in the world down by more than estimated 100 million people. The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011 report found that women lacked access to land, credit, tools and seeds that could boost agricultural production.


SOURCE:Vera Boahene/Accra

AUCTION SALE IN TEXAS FOR GHANAIAN NEEDY STUDENTS .

Ghana Initiative for Valued Education (GIVE) is organizing an auction sale to mobilize funs to offers scholarship to needy students in Ghana- West Africa.

GIVE, an Non-Profit Organization with its base in Arlington-U.S.A, has over the years been supporting needy but brilliant students with scholarships for tuition and other educational materials as well as the construction of classrooms.

Focusing on deprived communities in the country, GIVE has since its establishment in 2010, provided continous support to 333 students.

For 2013-2014 academic year, 85 scholarships were awarded: to 8 elementary, 74 junior high school, 2 senior high school and 1 university student.

And to help sustain this noble course, this year's GIVE fund raising has been slated for 17th April. The Event which is being organised under the auspices of the founder of GIVE, Craig Powell will feature auctioning of Sports collectibles from the Texas Ranger, authentic African art works among several others.