Reverend Steve Mensah, the General Overseer and Resident Pastor of the Charismatic Evangelistic Ministry, has voiced serious concern about the high rate of child mortality in Ghana, calling the figures “staggering, embarrassing,” and unacceptable for a nation striving for progress.
Addressing participants at the JoyNews National Dialogue on Investment in Newborn Health: Giving Preterm Babies a Strong Start, Rev. Mensah described the child mortality statistics—especially deaths occurring within the first five years—as truly alarming and not to be dismissed as “just another set of numbers.” “This is the first time I have truly grasped the data on how many children die before reaching five years old. The figures are staggering—equivalent to filling a stadium one and a half times,” he remarked.
“We shouldn’t allow Prof’s data to become a conversation that fizzles out. We must take a critical look at the number of children we are losing and reduce it as much as we can,” he said.
Rev. Mensah stressed that the figures should trigger urgent national action, noting that Ghana spends significant resources on many areas, yet the protection of human life — particularly the lives of children — should be treated as the highest priority. “The numbers are embarrassing to the nation.”
Reverend Mensah made his remarks after a presentation by Professor Alexander Manu, Director of the Institute of Health Research at UHAS, who shared sobering statistics on child survival rates in Ghana. Professor Manu highlighted that in 2000, there were 67,273 deaths among children under five years old in Ghana, compared to 32,579 in 2023.
While this decrease signals improvement, it still represents thousands of lives lost to preventable causes. Focusing on newborns, he reported that neonatal deaths numbered 25,193 in 2000 and declined to 18,856 in 2023, underscoring that newborns remain a large proportion of child mortality despite the downward trend.
Rev. Mensah urged policymakers, churches, civil society, and the health sector to unite in reducing these numbers, insisting that Ghana’s future depends on protecting its youngest citizens. He warned that failing to act would mean losing not just children, but the potential leaders, innovators, and contributors to the nation’s development.
Source: Emma Ankrah
