AN ASSESSMENT OF GHANA’S PREPAREDNESS TOWARDS ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 3.6: THE ROLE OF THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND RELEVANT STAKEHOLDERS

ABSTRACT 

Ghana carries a heavy burden of medical emergencies, trauma and injuries that have long become of public health concern. Overall, there is a huge injury burden not in an isolated occurrence but occurs daily or weekly resulting in severe disability and preventable deaths. Ghana through its National Development Planning Commission adopted the Sustainable Development Goals as part of its national policies. The Ministry of Health have inculcated some of the indicators of the SDGs especially Goal 3. This study seeks to examine the implementation of Goal 3.6 and its relevance to Road Traffic Accidents (RTA) in Ghana, its causes and the Ministry of Health (MoH) and other relevant stakeholders in preventing RTA.  The study adopts a descriptive approach to explore the efforts towards the implementation and achievement of Goal 3.6. The research employed qualitative methods using semi-structured interviews and conversations with institutional representatives guided by a questionnaire to enable achieve the study objectives. Key respondents were purposively selected to provide in-depth information and access to institutional data. We relied on both primary sources of data with the secondary data consisting of meetings reports, health summit conference presentations, institutional reports, policies and guidelines on the subject. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis for reporting. Although the study did not anticipate any harm to respondents, we observed ethical procedures by ensuring confidentiality, anonymity and informed consent for respondents.  

The key findings from the study showed that Goal 3.6 is relevant to tackling RTA and the Ministry of Health has a major role in implementing it with the aid of its agencies and those from other sectors such as the Ministry of Interior through its Motor Transport and Traffic Department; Ministry of Transport’  Drivers and Vehicle Licensing Authority and National Road Safety Authority to enforce road traffic regulations and promote road safety; the Ministry of Roads and Highways to improve on road constructions and maintenance; the Ministry of Information’s National Media Commission to engage in active health promotion and preventive activities among others. This demonstrates the complexities of implementing and achieving Goal 3.6 with multisectoral coordination, poor resources and inadequate infrastructures. Preventing RTA require preventive actions and appropriate investment in institutions responsible for pre-hospital care. 

The study concludes that the country might not achieve the target at the establish time due to the above challenges. Therefore, to make any gains there is the need to create a permanent or temporary working multi-sector committee to coordinate and implement activities relating to road traffic accidents. Also, law enforcement of road traffic rules and regulations must be strengthened, community engagement improved, skills of first responders built and improved, and media/press participant and advocacy increased to reduce the incident of RTA. This coupled with the policies guiding prevention of RTA and emergency services will impact on the implementation of Goal 3.6.