A public health analyst, Mr. Samuel Arthur has called on the government to have another look at its mode of fighting the Covid-19 disease by employing a household education measure instead of the current solely mass media approach.
Speaking on Starr Fm’s Morning Starr today, Mr. Arthur was of the view that the health minister’s stern warnings in relation to Ghanaians not complying to the preventive measures is not the right way to look at the situation.
According to the analyst, it’s not necessarily their fault but actually their understanding that must be enriched. He believes that the government must use means that will get the people engaged directly to know more about the disease.
He advocates for government to employ measures that will use a community-household approach that will make the people more informed and educated to be policing themselves instead of using the force meted out by the security apparatus charged with enforcing the laws.
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“And I am going the way where we need to be doing household education. I mean house-to-house. The dynamics in houses are different. People live in compound houses, using the same toilet…so the interaction there is quite high. Now for education for people within that kind of setting, you may want to point on some clear indicators depending on the environment around and the risk infectees so the household will be alert knowing that going to this place, this is what you need to do… Now, within the household, you’ll be amazed, the people will police each other rather than getting police and other military people to say people should put on their mask” he said.
He further stressed that Ghana is doing some education but the type of education that can bring us the results we want, is this household form of education.
Mr. Arthur also mentioned this was the time for government to make use of some investments already made instead of putting in more resources for new measures. He believes that government interventions and policies like the Ghana Post GPS application and NABCO personnel are such examples that could be used to implement this educational process.
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Speaking about how the application can be utilized, he said “the good thing is, our vice-president’s initiative, which helped us to get address for each household [the GhanaPost GPS]; this is the time to use it. Let’s activate it. Let’s know the households, let’s see as many households that we can reach using the app…”
He adds that whiles this is done, the about100,000 NABCO personnel employed can be assigned each person 10 household and charged with the responsibility of getting personal with them such that they can understand the people well and give them the kind of education that will make them understand taking personal protective measures serious.
“Understanding the situation helps them to know how to prevent themselves. Now if 100, 000 and 10, we are going to get about a million households. Now if every household has about a minimum 10 people there, we have reached about 10 million. For me if there is the science, this is the science I’d want to look at.” He added.
