Ghana Health Service urges media to track promises made under Community Scorecard
BY Seraphine Nyuiemedi The media as a bridge between communities, healthcare managers, policymakers and the general public are to go beyond just reporting health delivery outcomes and follow up on commitments made to communities under the National Community Scorecard Initiative, and make sure those commitments lead to better healthcare delivery and outcomes. Ghana’s National Community […]
The Ghana Health Service has urged journalists to monitor and hold accountable the promises made to communities under the National Community Scorecard Initiative. Launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Health with the support of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, the scorecard is a quarterly tool for assessing health services based on nine indicators.
Dr. Samuel Boakye-Boateng, Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ghana Health Service, emphasized during a training webinar that journalists must go beyond reporting the findings and investigate whether commitments are being kept, services are improving, what was agreed upon, and who is accountable for what.
Dr. Charity Binka, Executive Secretary of the African Media and Malaria Research Network, stressed the importance of community concerns reaching decision-makers and the need for collaboration among communities, health providers, and journalists to enhance accountability in the health sector. The initiative aims to cover all 16 regions and 261 districts and has already trained 80 regional facilitators, 782 district officers, 132 hospital quality managers, and 52 journalists.
However, challenges such as inconsistent reporting, incomplete scoring, community fatigue, unverified data in DHIMS2, and delays in fund releases persist. The Ghana Health Service plans to address these issues through quarterly follow-ups, better data validation, ranking CHPS zones, and stronger tracking of action plans.
Written by urgent.news from GBC Ghana's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
