The Executive Secretary of the African Center for Health Policy and Research Analysis (ACH-PRA) a policy think-tank, Dr. Thomas Anaba has lampooned government for the decision to employ drone delivery services for medical supplies when health facilities across the country lack the requisite human capital and expertise to administer such supplies.
According to the former Medical Director of the Accra Regional Hospital, the drone medical supply initiaive which is being engineered by the Minister for health and the Director General of the Ghana Health Service is a big misplaced priority and a deliberate ploy by the duo to create, loot and share.
According to Dr. Anaba, what should engage the attention of government with respect to the health sector is the resourcing of the various health facilities in the rural communities where the drones will be delivering the supplies since there are no qualified personnel in those facilities to administer the blood and emergency supplies.
‘’No rural clinic or chips compound has the requisite skills to transfuse blood and even to manage the complications from the transfusion of the blood. They are also talking about sending blood to accident scenes for people to transfuse. Nobody in an accident scene has the requisite skills and knowledge to transfuse blood’’ he opined further in an interview on Accra based class Fm.
Dr. Anaba is worried that most health facilities in the country lack basic resources such as BP apparatus among others to operate and deliver efficiently.
‘’We don’t even have blood. Crosscheck with the various blood banks and find out if we have enough blood in the system. How can you bring a boat to fish when you don’t have fish in the lake? It is a drain to the economy of Ghana and is giving the opportunity to a US firm to make money’’ he averred.
Dr. Anaba continued ‘’how can you spend such a huge amount as 12.5 million dollars on drones when we have nurses and doctors at home without jobs? It is a big misplaced priority’’.
According to him, it wrong for Ghana to be making comparisons with Rwanda which is already using the drone delivery system, arguing that Rwanda trained and posted the required and requisite human resource capital to the various health facilities before commencing the service.
Again he believes the move is a ploy by the Minister for Health to cover up for his underperformance at the Ministry.
He is therefore impressing upon parliament not to consent to the agreement, adding that the money should be used to employ more health professionals and purchase motor bikes for community health nurses and doctors to provide primary healthcare in rural communities.
Source: BestNewsGH.com
