Madam Anne-Claire Dufay, UNICEF Country Representative in Ghana, noted that this would go a long to contribute to reduction in newborn deaths. She said it would also enable mothers have effective information on maternal and child health.

A NICU also known as an Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) is an intensive care unit specialising in the care of ill or premature newborn infants.  Neonatal refers to the first 28 days of life.  Madam Dufay made these remarks when she paid a courtesy call on Mr Rockson Ayine Bukari, the Upper East Regional Minister in Bolgatanga.

Mr Ron Strikker, the Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, was also part of the delegation.

The visit was to enable the delegation have an overview of the New Born Care Interventions programme, including Kangaroo Mother Care Initiatives and Birth Registration. UNICEF is currently supporting the Upper East Region to implement the Mother Baby Friendly Health Initiative (MBFHI) which was under the National Newborn Strategy and Action Plan.

The MBFHI programme funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is being implemented by UNICEF in four districts, namely Bawku Municipal, Bolgatanga Municipal, Bongo District and Kassena Nankana District in the Upper East Region.

The initiative aims at transforming health facilities into mother and baby friendly facilities through implementation of quality care around the time of birth and early postnatal period and promotion of breastfeeding practices with a goal to reduce maternal newborn mortality and morbidity.

Madam Dufay said few years ago, with the support of the Government of Japan, UNICEF equipped the Upper East Regional Hospital with NICU with beds and equipment. She said since then, there had been lots of progress as the Hospital now records low neonatal mortality.

She noted that the Regional Hospital which was considered as a Centre of Excellence had applied a methodology called ‘Kangaroo Mother Care’, which had got to do with a skin-to-skin contact that helps save lives of preterm and low weight babies.

She said in that regard there was a need to continue helping these hospitals and many other NICUs by providing more beds, equipment and more training for the staff; adding that “this is something we are involved in through the support of our donors”.Mr Bukari said that the mission of UNICEF had shown in ample ways that together and with determination results could be largely achieved without the luxury of money.

He said through their community –based approach to development, they were witnessing behaviour change in people especially on the implementation of the Urban Community Led-Total Sanitation concept. Mr Bukari pointed out that with regards to the NICU in the Regional Hospital, the intervention   was helping to minimise the situation where new born deaths were accounting for a high percentage of all under five deaths in Ghana.

“Ghana is proud today of the progress we making in social intervention partly because of the support by way of making available baseline information and building capacity of implementers," he added.

The Regional Minister said they had a Regional Office for Births and Deaths equipped with necessary logistics to prosecute its mandate. He noted that the Government had aligned and further decentralised the Department to ensure that Ghana builds continuous data base of all births to inform development planning and child care programmes.

Mr Bukari noted that the visit was a special moment for both parties to access their collective efforts and resolve to tackle the remaining issues as a way of sustaining their relations.