Participants at a forum to collate citizens' priorities on inputs into the 2022 National Budget and the Medium Term Development Plans (MTDP) have called on government to provide means of transport for health staff at CHPS Compounds across the country.

They argued that the current situation where staff at most CHPS Compounds relied on their own means of movement (motorbikes) to visit communities for especially immunisation purposes was not good for efficient health care delivery.

They said targeted populations in some communities were mostly not covered for immunisation and other health care purposes when staff of nearby CHPS Compounds did not have their own means of movement to reach them.

The forum, organised in Tamale by SEND-GHANA, a civil society organization, with support from Global Health Advocacy Incubator, and African Population and Health Research Center, was in response to calls by the Ministry of Finance for the public to submit inputs for consideration as part of the preparation of the 2022 Budget Statement, which would be presented to Parliament later in November, this year, as well as the preparation of the MTDPs (2022 – 2025).

Participants included; staff of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies, Ghana Health Service, civil society organisations, district citizens' monitoring committees, traditional leaders, persons with disability, and religious leaders.

There was a presentation on immunisation financing and epidemic preparedness in the Northern Region where data showed that even though successes were being recorded in the area of coverage of immunisation activities in the region, funding for the immunisation activities was rather coming from donor agencies.

Participants also decried the inadequate cold chain system in the health sector in the region and called on government to equip all health facilities with refrigerators to store their drugs as well as provide ice chests for community health nurses to store drugs when moving to communities for health care activities.

They expressed the need to redistribute health staff to health facilities and called for schemes such as free accommodation, early promotion and transportation amongst others for health staff who accepted postings to remote communities.

Others also called for regular and adequate flow of District Assemblies' Common Fund to MMDAs to carry through their activities.

Mr Mumuni Mohammed, Northern Regional Programme Manager of SEND-GHANA said the issues raised at the forum would be reviewed and presented to the Ministry of Finance as part of the preparation of the 2022 Budget Statement and the MTDPs (2022 – 2025).