Bad Roads, Poor Healthcare System Threaten Pregnant Women In Gyakiti

Imagine having to travel 30 minutes on a dusty and bumpy road while in labour, only to lose the baby on arrival.

This has been the plight of some women and residents of Gyakiti and surrounding communities in the Asuogyaman District of the Eastern Region.

For over thirty years, residents of Gyakiti, a farming community surrounded by the Volta Lake have had no immediate access to quality healthcare delivery.

Although healthcare is a basic right of any community, for the people of Gyakiti, it appears to be more of a privilege.

They have to ply their dusty and bumpy road for thirty minutes just to get to the nearest hospital in Akosombo to access healthcare. At night, they fear the worst might happen.

This fear and the absence of a public hospital, which has denied them their basic healthcare needs, pushed them to turn their area council into a health centre. This was after a native who gave out his building to be used as a hospital, due to the poor management of the facility by residents and neglect by government, took it back.

The makeshift health centre can boast of only two nurses who were not at post at the time of filing this report . The Centre also lacks electricity and beds.

The health facility in the community has not seen any renovation or increase in staff numbers even though the population of the community keeps increasing.

This makes it difficult for women to successfully delivery there.

The Assembly Member for Gyakiti, Edith Amfo, who confirmed the difficulties faced by the community said the nurses share the area council with officials of NDAMO.

According to her, several appeals to successive governments for help have proved futile.

Men, women and children of Gyakiti are appealing to the government to support the clinic project started by the community to strengthen healthcare delivery in the area.

Below is the full report