The Danish Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Stig Barlyng has advised various stakeholders in the health sector not to burden the system through unnecessary administrative and reporting parallel systems so as to ensure the best possible care for patients.

According to him, these limitations, which are due to fragmentation of the sector, are a major challenge that needs to be tackled together. He lamented the different manuals for the training of Community Health Workers depending and also the dramatic increase in the number of malaria cases with the introduction of diagnosis related billing.

He made these statements at the Ministry of Health's Health Summit 2009, which was under the theme "Beyond Strategy to Action". He described the theme as appropriate and believed that it would stimulate Ghana and its development partners to devote much time to think about how to turn well developed strategies into much needed action.

Mr. Barlyng observed that health was not just an issue of going to the clinic when one was ill but that it was about having access to sanitation, clean water, and preventive care. There was therefore the urgent need for inter-sectoral collaboration.

He called for the strengthening of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to ensure improved budget execution for districts to have funding for service delivery and for the Ministry of Women and Children's Affiars to promote Millennium Development Goals (MDG) four and five.

With maternal mortality declared as a national emergency with a rate of 451 per 100,000 live births, Ghana as a nation has not yet made the necessary progress to ensure the achievement of MDG five. Unsafe abortions might be responsible for as much as 20% of all maternal deaths in Ghana and this call for an improved access to safe abortion.

The Minister for Health, Dr. Benjamin Kumbour, said under the Government of Ghana and the Sector budgetary Support GHC 35 million has been allocated for reproductive and child health services including nutrition services.

He disclosed that about GHc 36.7 million has also been ring fenced for all communicable diseases including malaria and other endemic diseases. GHc 300,000 of this is earmarked towards the guinea worm eradication programme.

He further revealed that Government has also put aside GHc 1.3 million to support the Mental Health Services and GHc 3.8 million to scale up the National Ambulance Service.

He said Government is committed to the passage of the Mental Health Bill for the Ministry of Health and its agencies to empower them to develop the community -based psychiatric care, crucial to improving accessibility health care and reducing the stigma often associated with mental illness.