Jirapa Health Directorate To Institute Motivational Scheme


The Jirapa District Director of Health, Phoebe Balagumyetime says performance related motivational package will be instituted to encourage well behaved and hard working staff to sustain their commitment. 

Madam Balagumyetime observed that: “some people hide under  the cover that whether I work or not when they are giving the end of year package, you know, I will get, so whilst others are killing themselves others will decide not do anything.” 

She was addressing the Jirapa District Annual Health Performance Review Meeting at Jirapa in the Upper West Region. 

Touching on what she termed “leadership and governance.” 
Mad. Balagumyetime pointed out that the District is challenged in respect of weak managerial leadership skills at the sub-district level, saying “this has greatly affected performance and it is of great concern in the district.”  

The District Director of Health intimated that some of the managers are not able to lead, drive and monitor the activities of their subordinates leading to a general lack of commitment and indiscipline among junior staff. 

Mentoring and coaching is virtually non-existent and absenteeism has become the order of the day in some instances. 

According to GBC’s Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo, efforts are being made to put stringent measures in place to deal with those who will misconduct themselves in order to maintain discipline at the various health facilities in the Jirapa District. 

Madam Balagumyetime also reminded health workers that the health sector has an appraisal system at various levels and that staff will be judged based on specific objectives being pursued. 

She emphasized that performance appraisals will capture exactly what staff have been doing in their line of duty. 

Madam Balagumyetime said health financing remains a big challenge to the district as budgetary allocations keep dwindling, sometime it will come, some other times nothing and this situation has affected planning and implementation of activities under the year under review. 

The District Hospital rely solely on internally generated fund from the national health insurance, close to 99 percent of the patients are insured, only one percent of those who visit the hospital use cash and the delay in reimbursement greatly affect the hospital. 

It came out that, at times, personnel of the hospital also delay in submitting the health insurance claims and they were advised to be proactive in filing the claims.

The staff situation for 2016 equally improved drastically in terms of community and enrolled nurses as well as midwives. 

Madam Balagumyetime said 46 midwives are in the Jirapa District and that some of them had been deployed to CHPS zones. 

She added that the only challenge is that some of the community health nurses cannot communicate with the people at the CHPS level because of language barrier. 

Health personnel were admonished to uphold the culture of maintenance and manage government’s property and resources in their care appropriately. 

Madam Balagumyetime stated that they were alarmed that Burkina Faso had reported dengue fever and stepped surveillance and as a result recorded one suspected case of measles.

Malaria continued to be a nagging problem but this time the proportion of the cases recorded has reduced to 26 from 35 in the previous year.

The District was also worried about teenage pregnancy and unsafe abortion. Teenage pregnancy increased from 251 in 2015 to 340 in 2016 beginning from age ten. 

Unsafe abortions were also 28 in 2015 and moved up to 35 in 2016.Two maternal deaths were recorded in 2016 compared to 25 in 2015. One of the two maternal deaths was as a result of unsafe abortion. 

The Medical Director of the St. Joseph’s Hospital in Jirapa, Dr Richard Wodah-Seme observed that breast and cervical cancer are the two most leading causes of cancer death in women. He said though the two diseases can be prevented, much had not been done in that respect. 

According to Dr Wodah-Seme, the Hospital in collaboration with Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and other partners had started a cervical cancer screening program in Jirapa. 

A number of women, particularly those in their reproductive age had been screened and a few lesions detected and managed. He continued that hospital is following on the lesion cases. 

The Medical Director used the annual review meeting to advice health personnel at the sub-district to spread the message for women to advantage of the Jirapa hospital to do breast and cervical cancer screening. 

Dr. Wodah-Seme announced that the Hospital has provided a lactating centre where mothers will leave their babies under the supervision of people whilst on duty.


GBC