Ghana’s Deputy Health Minister has visited a Northern Region clinic where a maternal health partnership has more than doubled antenatal visits and cut haemorrhage referrals sharply.
Dr Grace Ayensu-Danquah toured the Presbyterian Health Centre at Fooshegu on July 10, a facility run under the Christian Health Association of Ghana with support from LifeNet International, as part of stakeholder engagement under the National Maternal Mortality Action and Response Programme within the Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health Emergency Response. Midwife Felicia Bayuo told the minister the LifeNet partnership had lifted monthly antenatal attendance from around 100 to 300 clients and skilled deliveries from 45 to 110, while referrals to the teaching hospital for postpartum haemorrhage fell from an average of six a month to just one over the past seven months. She credited the gains to training and mentoring on obstetric drapes for measuring blood loss accurately and on heat stable carbetocin, delivered through LifeNet’s EMOTIVE programme. A separate announcement by LifeNet and its supply partner Axmed in December had already flagged Fooshegu as a standout case, noting the clinic delivers more than 120 newborns a month and had recorded no maternal deaths in recent months.
Ayensu-Danquah commended the facility’s staff and said the innovations at Fooshegu were worth scaling to other health facilities, adding that the President wants strategies capable of reversing Ghana’s maternal mortality trend and that partners need to align their work with government priorities. The stakes behind that push are considerable. The Ministry of Health has said maternal mortality is the only worsening indicator in the country’s health system, recording more than 950 maternal deaths last year, and has set a target of cutting that toll by 20 percent by December 2026.
The Fooshegu stop was one part of a broader Northern Region tour. Ayensu-Danquah also visited Adibo and Gbungbaliga in the Yendi Municipality, where the Paramount Chief of the Gbungbaliga Traditional Area welcomed her engagement but pressed for more health workers, expanded facilities, staff accommodation, reliable drug supplies and backup power for the area’s health centre and CHPS compound, a reminder that gaps persist even where success stories like Fooshegu’s exist. At the Nurses and Midwives Training College in Tamale, she welcomed the first 49 students admitted to a new Bachelor of Science in Emergency Nursing programme, telling them their future patients are “waiting for you at the door of every emergency room in this country.”
Idris Buabeng, LifeNet’s Country Director, said the organisation remains committed to sustained investment and collaboration aimed at ending preventable maternal deaths. LifeNet is a faith based organisation working with the Christian Health Association of Ghana to strengthen last mile healthcare facilities, while PRIMER is the government’s framework for treating maternal mortality as a national emergency requiring coordinated political leadership.
