He said “a dedicated and professional staff is what will do the trick with the help of technology. We continue to appeal to staff to remember their calling and live to work by it”.

Mr Adongo was speaking at the mid-year performance review of the Upper East Regional Health Directorate held under the theme: “Achieving Sustainable Development Goals target for maternal and child health – the role of technology”.

The meeting brought together Municipal and District Health Directors, Medical Directors and Superintendents, Health Service Administrators, officials from the Association of Private Health Providers, donor partners, Non-Governmental Organizations among others to review their activities and share ideas on best practices.

Mr Adongo, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Zebilla Constituency, used the opportunity to reiterate calls on medical officers to accept postings to the region to augment the doctor-patient ratio which is currently stands at 1: 30,000.

“I wish to make a passionate appeal to medical officers in particular to take up the challenge of choosing to work in the Upper East Region to save us from reaching a near crisis level,” and assured interested doctors that stakeholders compensate them adequately for the services they would render.

He commended the Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Winfred Ofosu and his team for their for their good work, adding that “your decision to accept duty in the region when others declined it, is not only courageous, but also noble of your calling.”

Mr Adongo, who is a health practitioner, said it is important for health professionals to adopt technology to improve their old ways of doing things by guaranteeing efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery.

He said technology presents them with faster and reliable means of following the development of unborn babies right from the period of conception, “during the neonatal stages, and appropriate temperatures are able to be secured for those who need them for survival, especially preterm babies.”

Mr Adongo said government attached importance to technology and had invested in that direction.

He said the Regional Hospital now has telemedicine facilities which allowed virtual prescription or delivery of expert advice on special cases in the facilities of the region.

“As a government, we are determined to put the hospital in the right stead as a referral facility in the region through the completion of the rehabilitation and expansion works. To improve health service delivery in rural communities of Ghana and also emergency services, Government was employing the use of drones to deliver essential medicines.”

Mr Adongo said the Akufo-Addo led administration would leverage technology and human resource development to bridge the inequalities in health service provision.