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CHPS Praised as “One of
the Best”
The head of USAID’s
Health, Population and Nutrition division in Ghana, BethAnne Moskov,
recently characterized the Community-based Health Planning and Services
(CHPS) initiative as one of the best health policies in Africa.At a three-day annual
meeting of CHPS partner organizations in mid-October in Accra, Moskov
pledged continuing U.S. government support for initiatives that, like
CHPS, address health inequalities. USAID has awarded a $12 million,
five-year grant to assist Ghana in expanding the initiative into 30 of
its 138 districts.
CHPS is a strategy for
delivering primary health care services by mobilizing community support
and relocating nurses to community health centers. The Population
Council provided technical assistance to the Ghana Health Service in a
pilot project in Navrongo, the successes of which convinced the Ministry
of Health to adopt CHPS as the model for improving access to
high-quality primary care services in resource-poor communities
nationwide.
Health teams from Sierra
Leone, Burkina Faso, and Ethiopia have visited Ghana to study CHPS
implementation for possible replication in their own countries,
according to Frank Nyonator, director of the Policy Planning Monitoring
and Evaluation Unit of the Ghana Health Service. He noted at the meeting
that the initiative has generated international interest since the
Navrongo project, in northern Ghana, reported significant reduction in
under-five mortality last year, nearly reaching the Millennium
Development Goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds a decade
ahead of the 2015 global target date.
At a meeting of Ghana’s
National Health Forum in Accra in September, Deputy Minister of Health
Samuel Owusu-Agyei told attendees that CHPS “has enabled communities to
develop and participate in [care which is] efficient, affordable, and
responsive to their health needs.” The group of policymakers met to plan
for the expansion of the CHPS strategy to the national level.
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