At the fifth Upper East Regional Ghana Journalists Association Awards in Bolgatanga, Dr Braimah Baba Abubakari, the Ghana Health Service’s regional director, urged media professionals to move beyond routine health stories and keep Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) challenges in the public eye.
He said sustained coverage is essential to expose the hidden WASH problems that undermine maternal and child health services in rural communities. “WASH rarely arrives as a headline; it arrives slowly, as the child who falls sick again and again, the clinic that cannot keep its taps running, the mother who walks long distances for water while heavily pregnant,” he remarked.
Speaking under the ceremony’s theme, “Beyond the Headlines: The Media’s Role in Promoting Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) for Safe Motherhood and Quality Healthcare,” Dr Abubakari highlighted the need for partnership between journalists and health workers. He noted that health professionals supply data and technical insight, while journalists translate those facts into messages that reach villages.
“When we work together, a message about hand washing can travel from a regional report to a kitchen in a village in Garu. When we work apart, important truths stay in files and filing cabinets,” he said.
He urged reporters to tell the human stories behind the statistics and to follow up on interventions, ensuring that commitments lead to real outcomes. He also encouraged coverage of successful community initiatives, such as ending open defecation, securing consistent water supplies, or reducing diarrhoeal cases.
Dr Abubakari added that media houses should use local languages—Gurune, Kusaal, Buli and Mampruli—to reach wider audiences with messages on handwashing, safe water storage, hospital delivery and early antenatal care.
He praised award winners for their public education efforts and urged them to consider WASH and maternal health as priority areas for sustained reporting. “Every safe delivery and every child who survived and thrived represents a story worth telling,” he concluded.
