The Deputy Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Emmanuel Kojo Tinkorang has advised heads of the sub-districts of the service to discuss their reports of the annual review meetings with their communities in collaboration with the Assembly members in their areas. He explained that, it was through such interactions that the people could know the health problems in their communities and enable health workers to get the necessary collaborators to help solve many of the health problems in the communities. Dr Tinkorang was speaking at the Annual Health Review Meeting of the East Akim District Directorate of the Health Service at Kibi. He said the desire of the health service to reduce maternal mortality could be achieved only when the health service received the support of opinion leaders and the whole community. Dr. Emmanuel Ashong of the Kibi Government Hospital observed that, the problem confronting the district was the lack of specialist health workers in the district. He said the Kibi Government Hospital, despite its workload, has only one Laboratory Assistant staying five kilometres away from the hospital and sometimes work for 24 hours. Dr Ashong said the qualification of the officer also affect the revenue of the hospital since some tests could not be conducted in the hospital. He said though the hospital has one of the best labour wards in the health service, the ward could not be used because of lack of midwives at the hospital. Dr Ashong said if the hospital had sufficient midwives, the labour ward could be turned into a maternity clinic for the hospital. The District Director of Health Services, Mrs Eunice Abuaku said the district succeeded in reducing maternal deaths from 13 in 2003 to seven last year. She said the district was also able to make health service geographically accessible to the people in the district by the putting into full operation four new CHPS centres. Mrs Abuaku said HIV/AIDS continue to be a threat to the general population of the district with 139 out of 438 patients screened testing positive and 28 out of 139 blood donors testing positive. GNA