Mr. Kwesi Blay, the Deputy Western Regional Minister, has called on District Directors of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to liase with their district assemblies to plan and implement preventive measures to curb the incidence of malaria in the region. He made the call when closing the 2006 Annual Performance Review Meeting of the Regional GHS at Takoradi on Friday. Mr. Blay expressed concern about the high incidence of the disease in the region and said statistics indicated that the disease accounted for 45.5 per cent of out-patient attendance, 38.1 per cent of hospital admission and 18.6 per cent of hospital deaths in the region. "With this alarming statistics, malaria is undoubtedly the number one cause of morbidity and mortality in the region", he said. Mr. Blay commended the GHS for the timely manner in which it handled reported cases of yellow fever in the Wassa Amenfi West and Juabeso districts. He expressed the hope that the GHS would continue to maintain the same level of surveillance to ensure that new diseases are detected and prevented before they reach epidemic proportion. Mr. Blay spoke about allegations of fraud and sabotage by health workers against clients of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). He said although investigations by the Regional Directorate of the GHS could not hold any individual health worker culpable, health workers in the region should endeavour to live above reproach. Dr. Sylvester Anemana, the Regional Director of Health, said districts in the region did not have adequate health human resources. He said it is becoming extremely difficult to transfer health personnel from one area to another. Dr. Anemana said a total of 65 cases of leprosy were reported from 10 out of the 13 districts in the region in 2006 as against 64 cases in 2005. He said the top 10 causes of hospital admissions in the region were malaria, anaemia, diarrhoea diseases, pregnancy related complications and hernia. The rest are hypertension, abortion, pneumonia, gynaecological disorders and cellulite. Nana Edu Agyeman IV, Omanhene of Mankessim Traditional Area who is the Chairman of the Regional Health Committee, urged all health providers in the region to demonstrate a high sense of professionalism in the discharge of their duties. He said health managers should ensure that all staff of the service in the region respects the policies, regulations and procedures of the GHS. Nana Agyeman said a mechanism is in place to sanction any staff who misconducts himself. He called on health professionals and stakeholders to join hands with the government to strengthen and improve the health delivery system through the NHIS. Nana Agyeman appealed to managers of the scheme and health staff and stakeholders to eschew greed, avarice and politics to make the scheme a national issue. GNA