STROKE ASSOCIATION SUPPORTNETWORK-GHANA (SASNET-GHANA)  AND BREAST CARE INTERNATIONAL (BCI) LAUDS PRESIDENT

Ad Adams

STROKE ASSOCIATION SUPPORTNETWORK-GHANA (SASNET-GHANA)  AND Breast Care International(BCI) LAUDS PRESIDENT

Ad Adams Ebenezer ,Co- Founder &Executive Director of SASNET-GHANA and the President and Founder of Breast Care International, Dr. Beatrice Wiafe Addai, has commended President Akuffo Addo for asking health care institutions in the country not to neglect Persons with non-communicable diseases (NCDs), as they focused more on COVID-19 preventive protocols.

The President, in his latest address to the nation on COVID-19 gains and projections, cautioned against the neglect of NCDs which in themselves are fatal co- morbidities to the pandemic.

The chairperson and the Vice Chairman of the Ghana NCD Alliance, commended the timely Presidential intervention, noting that NCDs, which are life-long with higher morbidities, deserved consistent medical attention and care.

The Alliance, they said, had detailed personnel to step up its educational drive in a grand design to save patients who risked being sidelined as the Nation fought COVID-19, head-on.

Breast Care International (BCI) and Stroke Association Supportnetwork-Ghana(SASNET-GHANA)

had in a statement issued last week, cautioned policymakers and health care institutions against relegating the health needs of cancer patients onto the sidelines, as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe.

“As fatal as the pandemic could be, we are nonetheless encouraging hospitals to give equal attention to patients with non-communicable diseases, as evidence has shown that unattended, underlying non-communicable conditions could rather hasten the death of covid patients.”

Both leaders , noted that the President’s admonition on NCDs feeds into earlier directives issued by the working group of the World Health Organization, which directives aim at supporting countries in their efforts to strengthen the design and implementation of policies to treat people living with NCDs and prevent and control their risk factors during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The world health body cautioned that “diabetes, heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer patients, could be susceptible to COVID-19”, hence the measures aimed at limiting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on avoidable mortality and avoidable disability, for people living with, or affected by NCDs, and their risk factors.

“We urge our healthcare professionals not to entirely forget about NCDs, and people living with NCDs, who still require our attention”. concluded, in a statement issued and signed in Accra.