Sustainable Action through Voluntary Establishment (SAVE Ghana), Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has presented some items to the Nandom District Health Directorate to help increase immunisation coverage in the district.
The items include; a motorbike for the nurses, wellington boots for 10 Community Volunteers and immunisation registers to the five communities the NGO is working in together with the Nandom Health Directorate to increase immunisation coverage.
Mr Dintie Tahiru Suley, Executive Director of SAVE Ghana who presented the items to Madam Genevieve Yirpare, Nandom District Director of Health said the gesture was part of the implementation of the Gavy Immunisation Project funded by the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health.
He explained that the presentation of the items was meant to enhance the work of the District Health Administration and the Community Volunteers across the five communities in Ko Sub-District that they were working in since 2017.
The SAVE Ghana Executive Director further explained that the motorbike would help the nurses to reach out to the hard to reach communities to carry out immunisation services while the wellington boots and the immunisation registers would enhance the work of the Community Volunteers.
Mr Suley said their hope was to ensure that every child in those communities was immunised to significantly reduce the disease burden on the children and make them happy, adding that it would also give parents the opportunity to work to raise income to support other family needs.
Madam Yirpare said immunisation coverage was a problem in the district as it had the lowest coverage in the whole of the Upper West Region and mentioned transportation to reach out to communities and proper immunisation registers for proper documentation as the challenges hindering efforts to improve immunisation in the district.
The Nandom District Health Director said Community Volunteers equally faced challenges during rainy seasons as they went about discharging their sacrificial duties, adding that the wellington boots would therefore serve as motivation for them to show more commitment to their work.
She appealed to other benevolent organisations to come to their aid to enable them motivate the remaining Volunteers for them to give in their best to help scale up immunisation services in the district.
Madam Yirpare also cautioned the public to be wary of meningitis as this was the season for the disease and that the district had already started recording cases.
She therefore appealed to the public to look out for the symptoms and endeavour to report early to the hospital any time they suspect they were not feeling well to avoid the danger.
She said the type they were seeing could kill faster and needed to be reported early to the hospital for the necessary attention, adding that the District Health Administration was well prepared for emergencies as it had procured drugs and other logistics in readiness for the season.