The Ministry of Health is to launch the largest and most advanced medical drone delivery network in the world, subject to parliamentary approval.
The drone delivery network, which will be run by the Ghana Health Services and the Ministry of Health, will give Ghana the most advanced health care supply chain on the planet. The drones wlll operate 24 hours a day, from 4 distribution centers nationwide.
The first distribution center will be located near Suhum, the sites for the remaining 3 wlll be finalized by GHS subsequently, but are expected to cover much of the country.
Speaking at the news conference in Parliament, The Director General of GHS, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asari said, “the distribution centers will stock 184 lifesaving and essential medical supplies including: Emergency blood and oxytocin to saves women’s lives in childbirth. Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death.
Emergency medicines for surgeries, severe infections, antivenins and anti-rabies, diabetic emergencies, extremely high blood pressure emergencies”.
When one of the of the 2,500 health facilities covered by the new service stocks out of a product, it will order an emergency delivery by drone that will arrive in 30-40 minutes, he noted.
According to him, the drones will not replace the existing supply chain, “they will specialize in handling emergency stock out situations.
Ghana’s emergency medical drone delivery service will save tens of millions of Cedis by eliminating the need for expensive emergency trips to pick up product, and by avoiding wasteful overstocking of product at health facilities”.
He stressed the point that “this revolutionary healthcare service will help save lives, decrease waste in the system and increase healthcare access for more than 14 million people nationwide.
The drones and delivery service are built and operated by Zipline, a California-based automated logistics company, which helped launched the world’s first national drone delivery service in Rwanda in October of 2016″.
He justified that the medical drone delivery service has been so successful at decreasing waste, increasing access and saving lives that the government of Rwanda recently asked Zipline to quadruple the size of its operation there.
His media encounter followed a report of the Health Committee on the service agreement between the government of Ghana, represented by The ministry of Health and Fly Zipline Ghana Limited for the delivery of emergency health and blood products to public facilities in Ghana which was deferred by the speaker for further consultation.
Story by Edzorna Francis Mensch
