The courtesy call was part of Council’s two-day visit to the region acquaint itself with best practices in some selected public health facilities in the region.

Dr Yao Yeboah, Chairman of the GHS Council who briefed officials of the UERCC on the visit, said the Council was the fifth since the GHS was born out of the Ministry of Health about 23 years ago, and was about a year old in office for a tenure of four years.

He said as a Council, “We cannot afford to sit in Accra, in the board room and take decisions for staff and the work, and we have no context within which these things are done.”

He said the Council had taken it upon itself to visit all the 10 regions, and had visited the Eastern, Volta, Central, Western and Greater Accra Regions, adding that, the Upper East was the sixth region to be visited. Dr Yeboah disclosed that the Council would proceed to the Northern Region and climax the tour with visits to the Upper West, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti Regions in October this year.

He noted that “anywhere we go, we try to identify best practices, things that are being done differently from other regions, which are impacting positively on the health of the people in the region. We try to identify extraordinary good things and export the information to the other regions in Ghana.”

The Chairman said the Council visited all the levels of health services starting from the Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compound, Health Centre, a District Hospital and the Regional Hospital.

 The Council observed that the staff in all the various levels of the health system, worked with passion and were very much committed to their work.

These qualities he said were cardinal in health service delivery, because, if the health staff worked in a conducive and beautiful environment with all the needed equipment, vehicles, and the human factor was not available, the essence of health care would not be achieved.

In spite of the limited and structural defects of the hospital, Dr Yeboah noted that “the staff were doing extraordinarily good work.”

Dr Yeboah said the Council would support health care professionals in the region to enable them continue to deliver quality health care to the people, and called on the UERCC and the various District Assemblies to help augment central government’s support to improve health care delivery in the region.

Alhaji Mahamadu Azonko, Acting Chief Director of the UERCC, on behalf of the Deputy Upper East Regional Minister welcomed the Council members, and said the completion of renovation works on the Regional Hospital “is so dear to our hearts and we hope that your visit would add some impetus to the ongoing arrangements.”

He said the UERCC and the District Assemblies were passionate about health care delivery in the region, “just that we are passing through moment of challenges, more especially finances. Most of the Assemblies are expecting their monies and we want them to prioritise health,” he added.