The Ghana Health Service has expressed worry over the increasing number of child mortality in the country.
At least 90 deaths are recorded daily in health facilities and about 21,000 deaths annually across the country, the GHS revealed.
Speaking at the national newborn stakeholders’ meeting in Accra, the Director General of the GHS Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare said the government is committed to finding interventions to reverse the trend.
“In Ghana a newborn dies every 15 minutes, that is 90 deaths are recorded every day and 21,000 of newborns die annually,” Mr Asare disclosed.
He said: “The major causes of these are premature births, infections and complications during and after delivery, these indicators are not the best and in fact worse than some African countries with lower GDP.”
He further attributed the phenomenon to lack of access to quality health, nutrition services in deprived areas among others.
“Inadequate governance and quality control system and inefficiencies hamper evitable and effective health service delivery and also sustainability issue of the National Health Insurance Scheme which is meant to support the poor and the vulnerable in society,” he added.
“Government is bent on developing a new health strategy aimed at reducing the natal mortality from the present 29 per thousand in 2014 to 21 per thousand by the year 2020,”he noted.
