Rural communities in Ghana faces several health-related challenges including limited healthcare facilities, poor road conditions and poor health information provision that make access to health care and health facilities difficult (Aryee 2014).
Contagious, infectious and waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, amoebiasis, typhoid, infectious hepatitis, worm infestations, measles, malaria, tuberculosis, whooping cough, respiratory infections, pneumonia and reproductive tract infections dominate the morbidity pattern, especially in rural areas.
The challenges faced by Ghana healthcare system include poor hygiene and sanitation, inadequate financial health investments or limited workforce and facilities. Establishing health institutions and insurance schemes, increasing workforce, improving hygiene and treatment conditions can ameliorate the challenges faced.
Rural areas have poor roads and infrastructure. They lack proper housing, even though 82.4% of the population lives in formal dwellings, with 4.9% in informal dwellings and 12.3% in traditional dwellings.
Data show that people living in rural and remote areas have higher rates of hospitalizations, deaths, injury and also have poorer access to, and use of, primary health care services, than people living in Major cities.
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