Health caregivers at the Suntreso Hospital and Kumasi South Hospital in the Ashanti region have undergone a neonatal care training sessions imparted by three Israeli Neonatal experts.

The purpose of the training is to boost the staff’s capacity in their area of Kangaroon Mother Care.

Every year, the neonatal health experts visit the two health centres to assess and train health caregivers on neonatal procedures.

As part of their visit, Dr Agneta Golan, Dr Eylon Shani, and Dr Dan Greenberg assessed the operational success and challenges of the units and provided advise on their further management.

In 2009, as envisaged by the Israeli Prof. Miki Karplus, two neonatal units were established at the Suntreso and Kumasi South Hospitals in the Ashanti Region.

This was a trilateral partnership between Israel, the United States and Ghana.

Under the umbrella of MASHAV (Israel’s Agency for International Development and Cooperation), and with the support of Alliance for Global Goods, the Millenium City Initiative and the Metro Health Directorate of Kumasi.

It was done also with the collaboration of medical teams from the Soroka Medical Center/Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Beer Sheba, Israel) and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (Kumasi, Ghana) teamed up to establish the neonatal units.

Through this project, the experts have over the years engaged various health professionals at the Suntreso and Kumasi South Hospitals on neonatal care methodologies, low-tech techniques, training programmes.

It has contributed to the establishment of a data-collection system that helps to analyze the performance of the units.

Through this initiative, the Suntreso hospital has been able to treat about 800 babies in the past year.

They have also been able to establish a special care unit with open incubators which use low-tech and low-energy.

The success of this project has currently attracted the Manhyia Hospital to replicate the Kangaroon Mother Care model.

In March this year, a representative from the unit in Kumasi South Hospital will participate in the KMC Workshop 2018 and 37th Priorities in Perinatal Care Conference in South Africa to present the Kangaroo Mother Care model to other health professionals to replicate in other parts of Africa. 

 During the tour at the facilities, the Israeli team expressed confidence in the operations and maintenance of the units and further engaged the health staff on improvement methodologies that would further reduce neonatal death rates.

Accompanied by the MASHAV Coordinator at the Embassy of Israel in Ghana, the team also donated two scanners and two mechanical balancers for the units at the Suntreso and Kumasi South Hospitals.