Heart breaking reasons for Bolgatanga Midwifery demonstration unveiled
Students of Bolgatanga Midwifery College yesterday poured out all their frustration during their demonstration against school management for treating them as slaves in the name of acquiring Midwifery as a profession. Apexnewsgh.com report The students who all came out and unanimously demonstrated told Apexnewsgh.com they are suffering at the hands of their school management and needed government intervention to free them from what they described as bondage. If not for the invention of security ranging from the Regional Police Commander, Municipal Police Commander, officials BNI, and others. No one would have predicted what the outcome of the demonstration will be. We could hear some of the school teachers passing words like, “The students took us unaware” and “We were not expecting this at all” However, the school management together with student leaders was able to have a meeting following some of the issues they raised. The Regional Minister Stephen Yakubu also came, but by the time he came, the security had already done a good job by way of calming things down. However, our source from the meeting informed us that the Regional Minister requested a comprehensive report of what happened to be submitted to his office. Read below detailed reasons why Bolgatanga Midwifery College demonstrated. “Last semester, we paid over Ghc 300 for utility and over Ghc 300 for electricity but our light was disconnected without any tangible reason”. “If management is having a meeting, they don’t care to engage our leadership, they always come out from and imposed things on us”. “Thieves always came in with knives and guns to steal our phones. Just last month April, 14 phones were stolen from students, and this semester alone in the month of May within 1 week, students have lost 9 phones and when we complain to the principal, she will give us a heartbreaking response like “You people are careless” “For just two months, we are paying Ghc 1500.00 for feeding. Initially, we used to take sardines, but this time they are not giving us sardines anymore. They only give tea and Koko and even with the Koko”. “I am in year two, ever since I came into this school, I have not enjoyed Wi-Fi yet, every time they keep increasing the fee of the Wi-Fi” “Our dormitory is overcrowded”. “We are not saying they shouldn’t enjoy their AC, but they should also let us get what we are paying for”. “The food they are serving us, even a dog in my house will not agree to the TZ they served us”. “On several occasions when they are serving the soup and is about to finish, they will add water to it and steer it”. “We use to pay Ghc1100.00 for breakfast, lunch, and supper and this semester they have added Ghc 400.00 and now we pay Ghc 1500.00 and the funny thing is that, Ghc 1100.00 was able to serve us sardine and sugar and now with Ghc 1500,00 we don’t get sardine and sugar”. “Now, instead of our giving us the sardine we paid for, they now used their hands to squeeze Amani and put it inside our pepper”. We are not in Senior High, we want to charge phones by our beds. They claimed we are grown up but they are treating us as Primary school children. they stressed. Source: Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana For publication please kindly contact us on 0256336062 or Email apexnewsgh@gmail.com
Health Minister calls for collaboration from ECOWAS member states to mitigate the impact of Covid-19
The Minister for Health, Hon Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has asked members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to work together to strengthen coordination and consultation to enable them to mitigate some of the negative impacts of the novel coronavirus on the sub-region. This, he noted, is to harmonize and ensure the consistency of policies and measures implemented by the various states. Speaking at the 22nd Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Assembly of Health Ministers (AHM) in Abuja-Nigeria on November 12, 2021, Hon Agyeman-Manu noted that working together would promote the flagship project of free movement, by easing restriction measures to facilitate the movement of goods, persons, capital and services, while at the same time strengthening health and sanitation measures. He said it would also promote local production of essential medical products by taking advantage of innovation and new information technologies to improve health systems and promote research and development (R&D) to improve access to quality, essential medical products. The Health Minister, who is also the Chair of the AHM, added that it would also strengthen advocacy, policy dialogue and mobilize adequate resources, through sustainable partnerships to ensure food security and nutrition and strengthen partnerships to guide and support decision-makers in implementing evidence-based interventions. Havoc The collaboration, he intimated, has become necessary due to the havoc the pandemic has wrecked on the sub-region. He explained that, aside from health, the pandemic has had a heavy toll on the economies in the sub-region, a “situation which threatens to impede our ability to sustain the response effort.” According to the Health Minister, a recent report by Reliefweb showed that the rate of the spread of COVID-19 in the ECOWAS region, and the restriction measures taken, are draining the socioeconomic system of the member states. “According to the report, ECOWAS recorded a budget deficit of about 6.4% in 2020 after an increase of 4.7% in 2019 and 2.9% in 2018. This sharp deterioration in the region’s budget deficit is a reflection of a general situation in all the member states,” he said. “Thus, the resultant economic recession and the swift response of governments to the COVID-19 crisis would have a significant impact on the evolution of public debt relative to GDP of countries. Admittedly, this situation calls for concern as any economic downturn has a direct impact on expected investments in the health sector. This will certainly be disastrous in the midst of a pandemic of this magnitude,” he added. He noted that the adverse impact, notwithstanding, the sub-region has been successful in containing the virus despite claims by sceptics that Africa did not have the ability and capacity to deal with the crisis. “… working together, not only have we succeeded in controlling the situation, Guinea, with the support of ECOWAS and development partners, has succeeded in controlling the outbreak of Ebola and Marburg virus disease,” he added. He cautioned that the sub-region is “not out of the woods yet, and we cannot, therefore, be complacent. We must continue to comply with the existing protocols until we can be certain of flattening the curve.” Resolutions The meeting discussed, among other things, Intra Action Review on West African Health Organization (WAHO’s) Covid-19 pandemic response. It also discussed, for propose adoption, resolutions on the management of healthcare waste in the ECOWAS region; eradication of Neglected Tropical Diseases in the region; recognition of centres of excellence offering Master’s degrees in nursing and obstetrics science in the ECOWAS region; operationalization of the ECOWAS Regional Medicines Regulatory Agency (ECOMA); compilation of the West African Herbal Pharmacopoeia and the ECOWAS regional health indicators scorecard. Hon Agyeman-Manu expressed optimism that the “reports and resolutions will give us a better insight into the huge efforts we have collectively made as a region, to deal with the COVID 19 pandemic as well as the other health challenges confronting us.” “I am optimistic that with our continued support and availability of the requisite resources, WAHO can deliver on the mandate assigned to it by our Heads of State and Government, and the people of this region will be the better for it. We are certainly not in normal times; the stakes are obviously high, but as we have shown time and time again, ‘this too shall soon pass, and in the end, the resilience and tenacity of our people will prevail,” he stated. Delivering his closing remarks, Hon Agyeman-Manu further urged WAHO to address the concerns expressed by the AHM in their 2020 report, particularly, the dire staffing situation to enable the organization to discharge its mandate effectively. He also encouraged member states to double their efforts to reduce maternal mortality considerably as the sub-region strives to attain the SDG target of 70 deaths per 100,000 live births. This became necessary because, despite improvement in other health outcomes, maternal mortality is still a challenge in the sub-region with over 600 deaths per 100,000 live births. Cholera and yellow fever In a related development, cholera and yellow fever have been reported in some countries in the sub-region, including Ghana. This came to light during the 6th Governing Board meeting of the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control (RCSDC) held on November 10, 2021, ahead of the AHM. The meeting revealed that the epidemic situation in the region was a threat present in all Member States. The meeting, therefore, discussed plans to deal with the situation. Director of Public Health, Dr Asiedu-Bekoe, attended the meeting on behalf of Ghana. Meanwhile, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, the EPI Programme Manager of Ghana represented Ghana at a meeting of Heads of the National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) and the Heads of Vaccination Programmes held on 8-9 November 2021, where he presented a report on the key issues of the sub-regions NPHIs including high political commitment at the level of Heads of States; leveraging of existing platforms for delivering and online/electronic platforms to collect and store data on vaccination. Earlier, Dr Eric Nsiah-Boateng had represented the Director for Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of the