Hospital beds for Yizesi health center in Mamprugu Moaduri District, Northern Ghana.

The Yizesi health center is located in the Mamprugu Moaduri district of the Northern Region. Of the population 11 years and above, Mamprugu Moaduri has 77.9 percent who are not literate and 22.21 percent who are literate. Illiteracy is higher among the females (53.1%) than the males (46.9%). Averagely, the health center registers 1100 pregnant women at ante natal care unit, does 150 deliveries and takes care of 2500 at the Out Patient Department yearly. The health facility is in dire need of equipment to help boost health outcomes for mothers and infants especially. There are two wards in the facility, for women and men. The beds in there are however nothing to write home about. They have holes in them, and because of that expect to see women lying down of some old stretchers in the corridors in plain site of passersby in their most vulnerable states. Coupled with the foul smell left by the bats, it is almost impossible to lie in the wards.

Help is needed to provide beds especially to the facility. One other thing that will help greatly if to change the part of the roof that has been taking over by the bast and repaint the facility. The organization I work for, Savana Signatures, works avidly to help curb the incidences of maternal and infant mortality in the district through two main strategies; gestation-tailored maternal and child health messages delivered to women and partners without any cost and monthly support Ghana Health service (health facilities) to carry out vigorous sensitization on good practices in maternal and child health care. These strategies have led to an increase in health seeking behavior of the community people including women and adolescent girls. But the current conditions at the health facility does not motivate clients to visit the facility because the health staff are unable to detain them for further observation and treatment due to lack of beds.