Committee to promote health inaugurated

AN Inter-Agency Co-ordinating Committee for Health Promotion (ICC-HP) has been inaugurated in Accra.

The ICC-HP is aimed at advocating and positioning health promotion as the pivot for assuring public health in Ghana.

The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Ambassador Kabral Blay-Amihere, inaugurated the ICC-HP with a call on the group to work at harmonising the various roles played by individuals, groups and organisations in promoting health in the country.

According to the World Health Organisation ((WHO), 75 per cent of illnesses in the world could be prevented through health promotion linked to inputs of better nutrition, clean water supply, sanitation, immunisation, among other issues.

ICC-HP

Ambassador Blay-Amihere said the overall goal of the ICC-HP was also to harness and coordinate the collective resources of all stakeholders in an advisory capacity to help provide a sustained health promotion service for all.

 He called on people to give health issues prominence in their day-to-day discussions and also called on the media to promote health in their reportage.

“There are so many angles in health which, when well reported, would promote health issues in the country,” he said.

The Director of the School of Communications Studies, Professor Audrey Gadzekpo, who was selected as the chairperson of the ICC-HP, pledged the committee’s readiness to work and promote health in the country.

According to her, improving the country’s health needs had always been an agenda for many people and attributed the failure to health system challenges.

She said health promotion required effective communication but added that most often, communication was seen as an appendix in all spheres of life.

Overview

A former Deputy Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr George Amofah, who is a consultant on the committee, in a presentation on the overview of the ICC-HP, said there was the need for all partners to bring their expertise on board.

He said there was the need for an effective leadership to ensure that the objective of setting up the committee was achieved.

Dr Amofah said in Ghana, the practice of health promotion had been fragmented over the years, with no systematic effort to coordinate and harness the resources of all stakeholders in health promotion.

In a solidarity message, representatives from USAID, UNICEF, the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), the Advertisers Association of Ghana (AAG), the GHS and the Ministry of Health (MoH) all pledged their support for the committee to ensure that it worked to achieve its aim.

-Writer's email: rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh