Mr. Yohane Amarh Ashitey, Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive, has advocated an innovative approach to addressing blood shortages in the metropolis.
As a result, he urged traditional authorities, religious leaders, business bodies, educational institutions, health officials, and other stakeholders to collaborate to encourage more people to donate blood willingly.
During an Annual Performance Review at the Assembly’s ordinary meeting in Tema, Mr Ashitey remarked that frequent blood donation was critical to filling blood banks, especially for emergency situations, and raised concern over people’s refusal to donate blood to save lives.
In response to the Tema Health Directorate’s call for blood donations, the TMA MCE stated that the assembly will work with other stakeholders to organize blood donations to stock the blood bank.
He stated that the TMA staff and assembly members would set a good example by organizing a blood donation drive in partnership with the Tema General Hospital.
In a related development, Mr Ashitey added that the implementation of the 2022-2025 Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) was also on schedule, with 23 per cent of the overall activities in the 2022-2025 Medium Term Development Plan completed by the end of December 2022.
He indicated that 23 per cent fell short of a 25 per cent target for 2022, with 86 per cent as a baseline in 2021.
Mr Ashitey pledged that the Assembly, in collaboration with Assembly Members, Civil Society Organizations, and other stakeholders, will ensure that the Medium-Term Development Plan is implemented in a way that accelerates the metropolis’s progressive expansion.
He also stated that his organization’s ongoing efforts to attract public-private partnerships (PPP) to address developmental gaps would continue unabated and that the Assembly was ready to provide the necessary facilitation with corporate institutions and individuals through PPP to address the city’s developmental gaps.
Meanwhile, Ms Priscilla Aboagye-Mensah, an Officer at the Reproductive Health and Child Unit at the Tema General Hospital, noted that most pregnant women develop anaemia during pregnancy, which causes a shortage of blood during delivery.
She urged expectant women to visit antenatal clinics on a regular basis and to follow the advice of health officials to reduce maternal mortality in the country.
According to Ms Aboagye-Mensah, 25 maternal deaths happened in 2021, with 23 occurrences occurring in 2022, the maternal mortality ratio for the period was 286 per 100,000 live births, compared to 294 in 2021.
Source: Ghana News Agency