The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has inaugurated the Inter-agency Coordinating Committee for Health Promotion (ICC-HP) for three regions in northern Ghana to support in coordinating health promotion activities in those regions.
The three regions are the Upper West, Northern and Upper East Regions while the committees for the North East and Savannah Regions are to be formed and inaugurated at a later date.
Representatives from the Upper West Regional Health Directorate, Info Radio, Environmental Health and Sanitation Department, Information Service Department, Community Development Alliance, and the Ghana Private Road and Transport Union (GPRTU) constituted the seven-member committee for the Upper West Region that was inaugurated in Tamale.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony in Tamale on Thursday, Dr. Da-Costa Aboagye the Deputy Director at the Ghana Health Services in charge of Public Health, noted that the committee had been inaugurated at the national level and it was yielding positive results hence their decision to extend it to the regional level.
He explained that the initiative by the Director General of the Ghana Health Service to constitute the committee at the national level was to support the government in achieving its mandate of protecting the population.
Dr. Aboagye stated that the regional committees would also help lead the health promotion and prevention activities at the regional levels to help the regional health directorates achieve their mandates.
He said the committee had been tasked to work towards reducing the incidents of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in the various regions of operation.
“It is very crucial at the time of a pandemic of the Non-Communicable Diseases where we know hypertension, diabetes, stroke and the others are on the rise, it is just appropriate that this committee actually work to support the regional health directorates in reducing these incidents hypertension, diabetes and stroke, teenage pregnancy and all other behaviour change activities that will support to achieve the aim of the various directorates”, Dr. Aboagye explained.
He said the national ICC-HP would serve as a parent committee to guide the regional committees in achieving their targets.
Mr Al-hassan Hudi, the Deputy Chief of Party for the USAID Accelerated Social and Behavior Change (ASBC) activity, said USAID supported the establishment of the ICC-HP in order to court private sector support for health promotion activities.
“The Inter-agency Coordination Committee for Health Promotion basically focuses on driving private sector support for public health agenda in Ghana and our support is actually to see active private sector role in supporting public health agenda, getting private sector to be central in providing resources”, he explained.
Mr Alhassan cited the support of the private sector during the outbreak of COVID-19 and said that was the support they anticipate from the private sector for the public health agenda to prevent most of the diseases.