DON'T DEMAND MONEY FROM NURSING MOTHERS...Dr Sagoe-Moses (PAGE 23, OCT 3)

THE National Child Health Co-ordinator, Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, has cautioned that it is illegal for any health worker, especially midwives and other nurses, to demand money from nursing mothers who attend antenatal clinics.
He warned that anybody caught extorting money would be sanctioned.
“No nursing mother should pay any money to any health personnel when you send your children for weighing and no midwife or nurse should collect money from mothers attending weighing sessions because we are looking for scapegoats and apply the necessary disciplinary action against them,” she stressed.
Dr Sagoe-Moses gave the warning in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region based on reports that some nursing mothers who attended antenatal clinics were made to pay some fees before they were attended to by the health providers in charge.
“Some mothers have been complaining about the way some nurses charge them during weighing sessions, which should not be the case,” she stressed.
Dr Tagoe-Moses gave the warning at a seminar organised by the Paediatric Society of Ghana during its annual general and scientific meeting at the Sunyani Municipal Assembly Hall.
The theme for the seminar, which formed part of this year’s Child Health Promotion Week, was “Follow your child’s growth: Use your child health record”.
Dr Sagoe-Moses expressed concern about the way some health workers were not committed to attending to certain conditions because they claimed that they were not assigned to carry out that duty.
She cited for instance that some children were not immunised at birth simply because the public health nurses who were to carry out that responsibility were not available at the time that the children were born as they were supposedly performing other outreach programmes, adding that clinical nurses who might be around at the time would not undertake such a duty.
Dr Sagoe-Moses declared, “Let us put a stop to that sort of segregation because it does not help all of us, especially our mothers and the innocent children.”
The National Infant and Young Child Feeding Co-ordinator, Mrs Wilhelmina Okwabi, who was a co-facilitator for the function, stated that breastfeeding for two years or longer helped the child to grow well, stressing that complementary feeding meant giving other foods in addition.