Kufuor Frees Pregnant Girls

 
The perennial cases of detention of pregnant women receiving antenatal care at government healthcare facilities would be a thing of the past as government rolls out a new initiative to provide expectant mothers free medical services.

They will no longer pay a cedi for the services they receive during the period of pregnancy.

This was announced by President John Agyekum Kufuor at a bilateral meeting held between him and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday on the sidelines of the ‘Business Call To Action’ confab in London.

Under the initiative, the British government has pledged to support the health sector with £42.5m, out of which $6m would be set aside annually to implement the fee-free pregnancy care of Ghanaian women.

Yesterday, President Kufuor tasked the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to get together to implement the policy as soon as possible to bring succuor to the beneficiaries.

Reducing maternal mortality in pregnant women is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) developed out of the United Nations Millennium Declaration signed in September 2000, which states that maternal health must be improved and between 1990 and 2015 maternal mortality should be considerably reduced.

President Kufuor returned home last night after a 5-day trip to London at the invitation of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

That meeting sought to galvanise support from major international industries and businesses.

The high-profile meeting was attended by such big shots as Neville Isdell, Chief Executive Officer of Coca Cola; Michael Klien, Chairman of the Institute Clients Group of CITI; Paul Walsh, CEO of DIAGEO; Graham Mackay, CEO of SAB Miller; Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International; Hiromasa Yonekura, President of Sumitomo Chemicals; Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone; Mo Ibrahim of Mo Ibrahim Foundation; Prof Jeffrey Sachs.

President Kufuor tasked the gathering to look seriously to Africa not for aid but meaningful partnerships that would catapult the continent out of its present predicament.

He said: “It is easy to make a million dollars in Ghana, and Africa for that matter, than anywhere else in the world.”

He was accompanied to the meeting by Annan-Cato, Ghana’s High Commissioner to the UK; Ambassador D.K. Osei and Andrew Awuni, Press Secretary to the President
. source: D Guide
 

 
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