Sene East District in the Bono East Region has been identified as the most deprived district in Ghana in terms of access to Comprehensive Maternal and Newborn Care (CMONC), with the absence of a hospital and poor road network creating significant challenges for residents seeking emergency healthcare.
The Bono East Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Freeman Samson Samani, disclosed this at the 2026 Bono East Regional Half-Year Performance Review Meeting held at the Falls Palace Hotel Conference Hall in Kintampo.
He said the situation in Sene East was particularly concerning because pregnant women and other patients requiring emergency care often have to travel outside the district to access hospital services.
The meeting, held under the theme “Improving Maternal and Newborn Health and NCD Outcomes through Quality and Accessible Primary Health Care,” focused on assessing the region’s health performance and identifying practical interventions to improve healthcare delivery.
Dr. Samani said the eastern corridor remained the biggest challenge for the region, particularly because some health facilities did not have adequate numbers of health professionals to respond to emergencies.
He said the shortage of critical staff was contributing to poor health outcomes, including maternal deaths.
“The biggest challenge we have is the eastern corridor, when you get to some of these facilities, the required numbers of staff are not available to respond to emergencies. This is one of the things that is actually driving the increasing number of maternal deaths and other poor health outcomes in the eastern corridor.”
According to Dr. Samani, three districts in the eastern corridor did not have hospitals, leaving residents in those areas dependent on facilities in neighbouring districts.
He mentioned Pru West and Sene East, describing Sene East as the farthest and most deprived of the affected areas.
““Actually, three of the districts in the eastern corridor do not have hospitals at all, for instance, if you talk about Pru West, they do not have a hospital at all. Sene East, which is the farthest and the most deprived, also does not have a hospital.”
He disclosed the district’s poor road network further worsened the situation, particularly when patients needed urgent referral. Dr. Samani said the nearest hospital for residents of Sene East was in Sene West, meaning patients from remote communities often had to travel long distances before receiving hospital-level care.
“It will interest you to know that, in the whole country, as far as Comprehensive Maternal and Newborn Care (CMONC) is concerned, Sene East is the most deprived.
“They have a poor road network, and the nearest hospital is in Sene West. So, even before they travel from the most deprived area to the centre and get to a hospital, it becomes a challenge.”
According to him, delays in accessing referral services could be particularly dangerous for pregnant women and newborns, where timely intervention is critical.
The Regional Director said the Health Directorate had therefore placed Sene East among its top priorities. He disclosed that since assuming office, it was the only district he had visited more than once, demonstrating the level of attention being given to the area.
“Because of the absence of hospitals there, all the cases go to Sene West and Atebubu, and they get there very late. When they get there late, the outcomes sometimes are not good, so it is an area that we are trying to pay more attention to, and we are working to bridge the gaps.”
He said the region was also prioritising the posting of newly recruited health professionals to Sene East.
More than 50 percent of medical officers posted to the region last year, he said, were deployed to the district, while other critical health workers were also being prioritised for posting there.
Dr. Samani, however, said the challenge was not only about getting health workers to the district but also retaining them. He said the region was engaging traditional authorities to help create a conducive environment for health workers and improve retention.
He also identified accommodation as a major concern, saying government workers in the area sometimes paid four or five times what ordinary residents paid in rent.
The Regional Director said the combined challenges of infrastructure, human resources, transportation and accommodation required a whole-of-society approach.
He said addressing these challenges would be critical to improving maternal and newborn health outcomes and ensuring that residents in deprived communities had equitable access to quality healthcare
Source: Newspyramid.com
