Participants at a day’s social accountability forum have called on key stakeholders responsible for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) to prioritize interventions to strengthen access to WASH systems in healthcare facilities.
They said WASH systems were key to achieving quality healthcare delivery in facilities, hence, underscoring the need for stakeholders to prioritize the provision of such systems to help address various water and sanitation issues in healthcare facilities for improved service delivery.
They made the call, at Daboase, when Support for Community Mobilization Project/Programme (SCMPP), a local Civil Society Organisation (CSO), organised a social accountability forum on ‘Strengthening WASH systems in health care facilities’ in the Wassa East District of the Western Region.
The event brought together representatives from CSOs, Wassa East District Assembly, religious and traditional authorities, health care service providers, Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and Persons With Disabilities (PWDs).
There were other interest groups drawn from the district to discuss ways to strengthen the existing relationships between key WASH actors and the citizenry while deepening the knowledge and understanding of the people to empower them to demand accountability for WASH services in healthcare facilities.
The forum formed part of the CSO’s 12-month Strengthening Systems for WASH in Health Care Facilities Project, being implemented in the district, with support from WaterAid, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that is into WASH service.
The project sought to engage key WASH stakeholders and the citizenry to provide a platform geared towards fostering collaborations to devise strategies to address various issues confronting access to improved WASH systems in the implementing District.
A Baseline assessment of WASH systems in 24 selected healthcare facilities in the Wassa East District, which was conducted by SCMPP and presented during the forum showed that overall access to basic WASH services in healthcare facilities in the district was only 46.3 per cent.
Some of the participants, therefore, expressed worry over the state of WASH systems in healthcare facilities in the district and appealed to authorities to find lasting solutions to mitigate its impacts on healthcare delivery within the area.
Mr Agyapah Buah, SCMPP Team Leader, said improving upon WASH systems in healthcare facilities was paramount to achieving Sustainable Development Goal Six, which emphasized having access to clean water and sanitation for all, in Ghana.
He noted that addressing various challenges affecting improved WASH systems was a shared responsibility between both the citizenry and duty bearers, hence, it was vital for everyone to contribute to develop mechanisms to achieve the desired results.
‘That is why we have brought everyone on board to afford citizens an opportunity to engage WASH actors on how to improve the systems, and also to provide WASH actors a platform to explain key issues hindering the improvement of the systems in the district,’ he said.
Meanwhile, as part of the engagement, some officials from the Wassa East District Assembly took turns to clarify some concerns raised by other participants on what the Assembly was doing to improve upon WASH services in health care facilities in the district.
Source: Ghana News Agency
