I have been practicing Public Health and Disease Control in my locality for the past 10 years. I’m actually a CHPS Co-ordinator for the Wassa Amenfi East municipality in the Western Region of Ghana.
The road network as well as transport system is very poor in my terrain hence makes it difficult to access healthcare at the main Hospital sited at the capital from communities in the periphery. What the CHPS (Community-based Health Planning and Services) strategy sought to address was to send Primary Healthcare services to the doorsteps of the populace in these hard-to-reach communities and eventually bridge geographical and financial access gaps in Healthcare delivery.
The Municipality has succeeded in establishing over 45 Primary Health Care facilities evenly spread across our catchment areas, and can now boast of being among top 10 districts in the country with high number of CHPS facilities.
How can people who are new to this terrain locate and access health services at these facilities? Google map is what came to mind because most people are using Android phones and other smartphones so I signed up as Local Guide, added these facilities to the map. I can profess to you to that this move has really helped increase the Out-patient attendance of these facilities. This claim was evident in 2018 Annual Performance Report of Health Services in the municipality.
Simply, I love to share Primary health care facilities on Google Maps so that others can locate and access nearby places of quality health care thereby saving lives and promoting health.