Logistic financing is crucial to ensuring quality healthcare delivery, particularly for women, Mr Paul Senyo Gawu, Deputy Director of Procurement, Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said.
He noted that the provision of logistics and medicines remained a challenge, putting pressure on healthcare professionals.
Mr Gawu made the remarks when Lutech Industries and Herhealth, a US-based non-governmental organisation, donated ten colposcope devices to several health institutions in the country to improve cervical cancer screening and treatment.
He was grateful for the gesture and stated that the provision of the devices would help to improve healthcare delivery for women.
‘At the Ghana Health Service, we have a lot of qualified professionals, and getting the required equipment needed to work is key.
‘If you do not have the tools for the right diagnosis, you may be frustrating them, some will get angry and probably leave the country and we do not want to get to that stage,’ he said.
Mr Gawu gave the assurance tha
t the devices would be put to good use and maintained properly.
Professor Richard Adanu, Rector of Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, said the devices would help to efficiently improve cervical cancer screening effectively and lower the country’s increasing number of cases.
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in Ghana and among women aged 15 to 44.
Globally, cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent malignancy in women, with around 660,000 new cases in 2022.
According to the World Health Organization, 5,000 new cases of cervical cancer will occur in Ghana by 2025, with 3,361 fatalities annually.
The condition is curable if detected early and treated promptly.
Dr. Barbara Entsuah, a Fellow of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons who facilitated the donation of the devices, emphasized that women should get their cervix tested early on to prevent the disease from progressing.
She said that the Colposcope was an effective device for cervical cancer screening, early diagnosis,
and treatment.
‘This is a device which is used to examine the vagina and the cervix, and it magnifies and enables one to see things clearly than using the naked eye. So, this colposcope is important because it is used both for screening cervical cancer and taking biopsies or samples when the place is suspicious,’ she stated.
Dr. Entsuah said that the mobile devices would be invaluable to nurses and midwives during their outreach programmes.
Source: Ghana News Agency