Health Care

Health Facilities and Personnel

The general health conditions in the district can be said to be improving over the years. The access to health care remains relatively good except for the Volta basin island communities. The district has fifteen (15) health facilities made up of one (1) mission hospital at Anfoega, seven (7) health centres (Aveme Danyigba, Wusuta, Awate, Tsyome Sabadu, Botoku, Tsrukpe, Vakpo) and seven (7) CHPS Zones (Anfoega Bume, Tokomi, Wadamaxe, Beme, Jordan-Nu, Kpebe, Tsoxor).

Staff Strength

The staff strength in the district as follows made up of the under listed categories.

Table 4.3: Showing District Health Staff Strength

The quality of health care continue to improve however the inadequacy of equipment, drugs, other logistics and staff are the major challenges facing the health sector in the District. The Medical Officer-population ratio is 1: 13,304 while the Nurse-Population ratio is 1:634. However, there are other supporting staffs for these categories of health professionals to ease the pressure.

The above imply that, there is undue pressure on the staff of the sector, hence reducing the quality time a doctor and patient must have.

Incidence of diseases

Prevalence of major diseases in the District

Figure1.9: Prevalence/Incidence of HIV, Malaria and Guinea worm

Access to health facilities

North Dayi District is relatively served with health facilities within its areas of jurisdiction. However, several factors has contributed to the current state of these facilities.

Figure 2.0 provide detailed map of health facilities across the six area councils

Figure 2.0: Showing health map of the District

MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY

Top Ten causes of morbidity and mortality

The top ten diseases structure has experienced some epidemiological changes with malaria topping the list and accounting for 40.8% for 2016 and reducing to 30.3% in 2017. However, hypertension increased from 13.0% in 2016 to 21.4% in 2017 as the second top disease causing morbidity in the District.

The details are outlined in the table 4.5 below. T

The above indicates that, malaria is the major OPD case in the District recording 40.8% and 30.3% of reported cases in 2016 and 2017 respectively. This was followed by URTI and hypertension.

It therefore implies that, conscious effort should be made by all stakeholders in the health sector to ensure that, adequate sensitization is carried out to the populace to be proactive and not reactive towards the disease.

From table 4.6 above, essential hypertension was the leading cause of mortality in 2016 with a percentage of 23.7 whilst stroke was the sixth disease to have caused much mortality in the District. However, stroke became the first in 2017 with 19.4%.

It is worth noting that, in absolute terms, the frequency of occurrence of the top ten (10) causes of mortality reduced from 76 in 2016 to 67 in 2017.

HIV/AIDS:

Prevalence

According to the 2003 Demographic and Health Survey, HIV Prevalence is very low among younger age groups as relatively few are infected during their youth (with exceptions of infants infected through their mothers). The infection levels are highest in middle income and middle educational groups, with the poor and unemployed less affected.

In 2016, a total of 587 patients were tested and eleven (11) were tested positive representing 1.9% of the total number of patients tested. Also, in 2017, 607 patients were tested and twelve (12) tested positive representing 1.9% of the total number of patients tested.

Challenges in the health sector

• Inadequate health professionals.
• Inadequate accommodation for health care workers.
• Deplorable state of some existing health facilities.
• Use of obsolete equipment at some facilities.
• High NHIS claims debt.
• Untimely release of funds.
• Donor fatigue.

NUTRITION

Surveillance System

Nutritional status of children is normally assessed and monitored monthly during the years. There seem to be a general improvement in the infant nutritional level. Averagely, malnutrition (underweight) cases in the district consist of 6% of nutritional cases.

In June, 2017 out of a total of 1,845 children assessed, 97.5% were having normal weight for their age, whiles 2.5%% were underweight in deferent degrees i.e. moderate and severe. Furthermore, in October, 2017 out of a total of 1,595 children assessed, 96.8% were of normal weight while 3.2% were malnourished. However, in December, 2017, out of a total of 1,901 children assessed, 89.5% were normal while 10.5% were malnourished.

The improvement in malnutrition cases in the district could be attributed to the proper counseling being given to mothers on complementary feeding practices, and also the new growth chart also categorizes mildly underweight children (-1 z-score) as normal .hence the increased in normal cases to about 80%.

Table 3.6 below indicates the nutritional status of children from January to December, 2017 in the District.

Challenges with nutrition in the District

• Non-adherence to iodated salt usage.
• High poverty levels by families.
• Non-adherence to the nutritional needs of children by both parents.
• High level of ignorance by both parents