‘Ghanaians Must Adopt Healthy Lifestyles’

Source: Paul Akweterh Mensah - newtimesonline.com
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Presby Moderator, Rt Rev Frimpong-Manso

THE Presbyterian Church of Ghana has launched its annual health week celebration with a call on Ghanaians to adopt healthy lifestyles.


The programme scheduled for August, this year, will be used to raise the health awareness of members of the church as well as raise funds to support the church’s health services delivery.


The celebration will be marked with discussions on diabetes, hepatitis B, hypertension, personal and environmental hygiene and drug abuse.


The theme for the celebration is “Put on the whole armour of God – The health factor”.


The Moderator of the General Assembly of the (PCG), Right Reverend Dr Yaw Frimpong-Manso, who performed the launch in Accra at the church’s headquarters, said the church was sensitive to the plight of the poor and the marginalised in the society.


He said the provision of health and other social services including education and agriculture by the church, was a mandate given to them by God to serve mankind.


The Moderator said “as a responsible church we are obliged to support the society by providing their spiritual and physical needs.”


Their vision in the health sector, he said was to serve the disadvantaged in the society through the provision of holistic, affordable and quality health service in fulfilling of Christ’s mandate to go and “heal the sick who are there and tell them the kingdom of God is near you.”


Rt Rev Dr Frimpong-Manso said the health services programme of the church started in 1885 and had since developed and expanded to benefit thousands of people in and outside the country.


He said the PCG was currently operating 40 health institutions including four district hospitals, nine primary health care outreach programmes, 24 health centres and clinics, two nurses’ training colleges and a health technical unit.


These institutions, he said, provided a substantial portion of rural health services making the church the third largest single provider of health services in the country.


Rt Rev Dr Frimpong-Manso, indicated that as Christian health institutions, the hospitals and health centres provided free medical care to the vulnerable under a “poor and sick” fund intended to relieve the beneficiaries.


Despite these efforts to ensure accessible and affordable health care, he said, some of the operational areas of the church in the rural communities do not have health facilities.


This situation, the Moderator said, called for vigorous effort on their part to mobilise resources for the establishment of new facilities as well as expand existing ones within the next five years.