National High-Level Meeting on NCDs held to discuss service delivery and primary health care

A National High-Level Meeting on Non-communicable Disease (NCDs) has been held in Accra. It was put together by the Ghana NCD Alliance (GhNCDA) and Private Health Sector Alliance of Ghana (PHSAG) with collaborative support from the GIZ, the Ghana Heart Initiative (GHI), PATH, Medtronic LABS and World Vision International, among others.

In her remarks, the chairperson of the GhNCDA, Dr. Mrs. Beatrice Wiafe-Addai noted that this year’s meeting is a sequel to other similar landmark events that have been organized by the Alliance in recent memory to push forward issues of the last being the international strategic dialogue on NCDs and SDGs in Accra.

“The theme for today’s event, “investing in NCD service delivery at the primary health care level to achieve universal health coverage”, directly feeds, and reflects our primary national response to end the NCD epidemic locally.

“Achieving unhindered access to health care services devoid of all financial challenges imposes a huge responsibility on the Alliance and the private sector, to actualize the national NCD strategy designed to secure a significant reduction in Ghana’s dual burden of communicable, and non-communicable diseases,” she stated.

She was however of the view that achieving the “health for all” target cannot be achieved, and should not be pursued in isolation unless it is linked up to the total attainment of all the other 16 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have a direct bearing on the Alliance’s critical mission to drive down the mind-boggling statistics on NCDs.

“The Ghana NCD Alliance has consistently held the National High – Level Meeting on NCDs since 2018 and this year is the 5^th. It has always held the event alone bringing key national stakeholders from health and non-health sector. The National High Level Meeting is being organized around the UHC Day 2022,” she noted.

Speaking on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Ghana, Dr Francis Kasolo, the WHO Focal person on NCDs, Dr. Mary Ansong, was saddened by the fact that over the past 10 years, NCDs have changed the world as diseases which used to be considered as “diseases of affluence”, have now invaded low-and middle-income countries presenting a double or even triple burden of disease.

“For comprehensive care of NCDs all people require access, without discrimination, to a nationally determined set of promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative basic health services, without exposure to financial hardship.

“Again, the recognition of the critical importance of reducing the level of exposure of individuals and populations to the common modifiable risk factors for NCDs, while strengthening the capacity of individuals and populations to make healthier choices and follow lifestyle patterns that foster good health, cannot be overemphasized,’ she stated.

“While deaths from NCDs mainly occur in adulthood, exposure to risk factors begins in childhood and builds up throughout life. This underpins the importance of legislative and regulatory measures, as appropriate from within and outside the health sectors, to prevent the exposure to risky behaviors during adolescence stage.

In line with Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and SDG targets, Ghana in 2019 developed a comprehensive roadmap which focuses on Primary Health Care as the conduit towards the achievement of UHC. This offers an opportunity to improve equity in access to health care, as well as the efficient use of available resources and critical for the integration of NCDs services.

She said it is important for health systems to collaborate with other sectors and work in partnership to ensure that social determinants are considered in service planning and provision within communities.

Key objective of the High-level meeting was to enable effective partnership among relevant stakeholders towards the attainment of universal health coverage through the delivery of NCD services at the primary health care level with a focus on engaging the private sector to contribute to service delivery.

Background
Ghana has a dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, however, inadequate health financing and donor focus has led to a prioritization of communicable (infectious) diseases over non-communicable diseases (NCDs). NCDs however rank high among the top 10 causes of death in Ghana, and it is important that some attention is brought to the devastating nature of the emerging NCD epidemic.

Combined, NCDs are now a major cause of death globally and in Ghana. The National Policy on Non-Communicable Diseases 2022 identifies the need for collaborative efforts led by the Ministry of Health to address all NCDs in a holistic way. This means an inclusive, transparent, and effective multisectoral collaboration is needed to address this problem. It is in this vein that Ghana NCD Alliance (GhNCDA) and Private Health Sector Alliance of Ghana (PHSAG) see the need to collaborate to bring on board other relevant stakeholders (MoH, GHS, NCD Programme, NHIA, private health sector, CSOs, local and international organizations) to support the national response to the NCD challenge.

Since 2018, GhNCDA has held four successful “National High-Level Meetings on NCDs” with an aim to elevate the pressing NCDs problem to become a national priority using a multisectoral approach. The GhNCDA has partnered with relevant stakeholders to bring the NCD problem to the fore in Ghana.