Participant in a national rural forum organised by the Hunger Project-Ghana (THP-Ghana) at Odumase-Wawase in the Kwahu West Municipality in the Eastern Region, have appealed to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to reconsider the health policy that will not allow traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to handle deliveries with effect from 2015. The participants maintained that considering the valuable delivery services rendered by TBAs to expectant mothers in rural areas, where accessibility to health facilities is difficult, they should be allowed to play the role "until such a time that we have enough health facilities and professionals in those areas". The decision was taken jointly by the GHS and the World Health Organisation (WHO), as a result of what they termed as the "inability of TBAs to handle complications which lead to maternal mortality.” It was taken as part of measures to ensure that Ghana meets targets 4 and 5 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which respectively relate to reducing child mortality by two thirds and to reduce maternal mortality by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. The call by the participants was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of the forum, which was organised by THP-Ghana for its programme animators and epicenter representatives. The participants also urged the government to encourage women's participation in politics by implementing a system that would give 40 per cent representation in district assemblies to women. It further urged the government to establish a special fund for the training, grooming and campaign activities of female candidates of parliamentary and district assembly elections. The participants called on the government to enforce laws enacted to protect women and children, such as the Domestic Violence Act, the Intestate Succession Law and the Children’s Act. To that end, they called for the training of gender officers in all the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to spearhead the implementation and monitoring of gender-based policies. The participants also called on the government to establish a special scholarship scheme to support the education of brilliant needy girls, to ensure that they further their education after the junior high school level. They stressed the need for girls to be sponsored to nursing and teacher training institutions to increase the number of females in those professions. They called for the use of participatory approaches to bring out the negative effects of gender inequality in relation to the spread of HIV and AIDS. They urged the government to improve farm-gate access roads in food producing areas in order to address the challenges of transportation and distribution facing farmers. They also appealed to the government to provide special subsidies for female farmers to encourage them, while increasing financial and technical support to women groups, as well as introduce simple technology for the processing of vegetables and staple food crops in rural areas, to minimise post-harvest losses. The participants urged the government to support NGOs which undertake help build the potentials of enhance development. Source: Daily Graphic