Mrs. Matilda Amissah Arthur Launches Help Babies Breathe, Trainer Of Trainees Progamme In Sunyani

The wife of the Vice President, Matilda Amissah-Arthur, has said in 2013 the Ghana Health Service realized that grouping all under 5 year olds had not been helpful with regard to health projection and analysis.

Mrs. Amissah-Arthur made the statement on the 26th January 2013 when she launched a Newmont health program called Help Babies Breathe .Trainer of Trainees on behalf of Newmont Ghana and Project CURE.

She said according to the National Health Service, at least 320 out of every 1000 under five years old die and out of this figure 120 of them are newborns and currently as a nation we have 32 new born deaths per 1000 births which is not good .

Mrs. Matilda Amissah Arthur said the cause of the deaths have been found to be ,Infection , breathing problems ,Pneumonia and that breathing problems as we see in Ghana today is one of the causes of new born deaths .

Mrs. Amissah Arthur further said on July 30th 2014, Ghana launched a national new born strategy and action plan to bring attention to the high neonatal mortality rate in the country (2014-2018) and that for the last ten years the ratio of new born deaths has not reduced

The strategy she stated tackles policy gaps,professional practices, community stream and it recommends the establishment of a subcommittee of Newborn Care to update all essential guidelines and training manuals for new born care and coordinate all activities of the bodies concerned. So there is now a concerted effort towards the reduction of new born babies' death in the country.

She said the aim is to reduce neonatal deaths by 5 percent annually and reach a national rate of 212 percent 1000 births by 2018,adding that the increasing newborn deaths and the challenges posed I n lumping under five years olds together lead to this paradigm shift.

The wife of the Vice president said the Helping Babies breath program has been run by the Ghana Medical Help in the Upper East and Upper West regions of the country very successfully, so was very delighted that the Project Cure is also taking up the Helping Breathe training in Ghana.

Mrs. Amissah Arthur said the helping baby's breath program is a much need approach to save new born babies and hoped that those benefitting from the training of trainees would make good use of the training , so that they go back and train other nurses, midwifes and community birth attendants.

She said the training should cascade down to the point where every district there would be a core of trainees who can be called at any given time to train others at the various posts and also begin to implement whet they have leant and commended Newmont Ghana Gold Limited for supporting the health and other aspects of the lives of the people in the communities where they operate.

On her part the general manager of Newmont Ahafo mines Mrs. Adiki Ayitevie, said Helping Babies Breathe is a “ trainer of trainees “model with the goal of those trained to become trainers within their communities , adding that as an organization Newmont values and cherish improving the life's of people living in their host region thus, Brong Ahafo, especially in the area of health ,so as to impact positively in their life's .

Mrs. AdikiAyitevie said currently Ghana has a high rate of New born mortality rate due to birth asphyxia, prolonged and obstructed labor identified as intrapartum events and most still born babies are as a result to that.

She said helping babies breathe provides training techniques of reversing the physiological effects of the birth asphyxia and for those babies who due to trauma and fatigue during labor, do not breathe at birth.

Mrs. Adiki said the workshop that they are organizing is a sequel to the assorted hospital equipment's valued at two million dollars that they donated some two years ago to the Acherensua Health Centre and five other health facilities in the Asutifi area to help in the reduction of child mortality rate in the country as part of their social responsibilities.