Speaking during the 2022 Annual Performance Review meeting, Dr. Abukari said “last year, the Regional Health Directorate took some serious measures towards addressing this worrisome trend of maternal deaths in the region, and I am happy to report that our measures have paid off leading to over 60% reduction”.

He further solicited the support of all stakeholders and development partners in the region in combating the menace.

“I will therefore like to seize this opportunity to solicit the continuous support of the Regional Minister and all other stakeholders in our fight against maternal deaths,” he appealed.

Meanwhile, in the year under review, clinical services in the North East region – both Outpatient and Inpatient services registered a slight increase in 2022 compared to 2021.

In 2022, the region’s OPD per Capita stagnated at 0.75 which is below the target of 1.00. The proportion of insured patients at OPD decreased marginally from 87.5% in 2021 to 85.6% in 2022.

Dr. Abukari attributed the decline to the non-availability of medicines across health facilities, operations of several unlicensed over-the-counter-medicine shops and drug peddlers across the region, stressing that some operators detain and admit patients in their shops.

He noted the directorate has drawn the attention of FDA and Pharmacy Council for redress.

On his part, a member of the Ghana Health Service Council, Franklin Owusu Ansah, commended the North East Regional directorate for outstanding performance calling on all stakeholders to support quality health delivery.

Quality health delivery has been a major challenge across the country as many regions are without the necessary resources for successful health delivery.

In the North East Region, for the past two years, there’s been a significant improvement in maternal mortality and out-patients department attendance.

The region in 2022 recorded 6 institutional maternal deaths in 2022 compared to 16 deaths in the year 2021.

This brings the institutional maternal mortality ratio to 30.5 per 100,000 live births in 2022 compared to 84.8 per 100,000 live births for the year 2021 with the national target being 125 per 100,000 live births.

This is significant to Ghana’s efforts in achieving sustainable development goal 3 which is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages by 2030.

The objective of the goal is to increase life expectancy and reduce some of the common childhood killers and maternal mortality.