The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has described government’s intention to deploy the use of drones for medical deliveries as extremely useful, and has called on all Ghanaians to support the idea.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday 4th December, 2018, the Director General of the GHS, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare expressed worry over the continuous politicization of government's novel ideas by the opposition NDC, even when they have little understanding of the matter.
Dr. Nsiah Asare further dispelled rumours that the project is expensive and would cripple government’s budget. Rather, he said the project cost per service delivery of $17 is lower than what is currently being charged in Rwanda at $22.7 per delivery, and most importantly, would go a long way to save precious lives.
He was emphatic that this drone delivery service will come at Zero cost to the government of Ghana budget, stressing that as per the current arrangements the cost will be borne by the corporate sector through their corporate social responsibility obligations.
As is done in Rwanda, Ghana, through parliamentary approval is seeking to use a drone delivery network, which will be run by the Ghana Health Services and the Ministry of Health, to give Ghana the most advanced health care supply chain in the subregion.
The drones will operate 24 hrs a day from 4 distribution centers across the country. The distribution centers will stock 184 lifesaving and essential medical supplies including :
Emergency blood and oxytocin to save 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. The drones will not replace the existing supply chain.
In outlining the benefits of the system Dr. Nsiah Asare observed that “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 health care products and by avoiding wasteful overstocking of products at health facilities.”
“This revolutionary healthcare service will help save lives, decrease waste in the system and increase healthcare access for more than 14 million people nationwide," he indicated.
The drones and delivery service will be built and operated by Zipline, a California-based automated logistics company, which helped launch the world’s first national drone delivery service in Rwanda in October of 2016. 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.
Zipline will employ 200+ Ghanaians, including pharmacists, engineers, flight operations, and many more essential and allied support staff.
Zipline’s operation in Rwanda is already 100% run by Rwandans. Zipline has committed to 100% local employment in Ghana as well.
Zipline will build a training center in Ghana to support all of Zipline’s Anglophone West African operations.
When asked what the contract obligate Zipline to do, Dr. Nsiah Asare answered that Zipline will build 4 distribution centers at MoH-specified locations across Ghana.
Each distribution center will include at least 20 drones, launch and recovery equipment, state-of-the-art medical refrigeration equipment, and computerized order management systems. Each will be staffed by up to 50 Ghanaian employees.
Zipline must operate drone flights from the distribution centers on a 24/7 basis to deliver medical products on request to health facilities within an 80 km service radius.
Zipline will guarantee a capacity of 150 flights per Delivery Cost (DC) day. This means that the 4 distribution centers will be able to make up to 600 emergency deliveries per day total (and the flights can usually carry more than 1 product).
Source: Peacefmonline.com
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First, I don't think the airspace of the country should be open to any drone which is not built according to the specifications of the State, involving the State, and built by the State to traverse the length and breadth of the landscape of the country, including farm lands, rivers, forests etc, etc ostensibly to distribute emergency blood and medical supplies as well as vaccines to remote or non-remote parts of the country. Second, why should there not be blood and those emergency medical supplies, etc, etc at the health center or facility if they exist, and have the needed storage facilities? What inventory system do they have and are operating? And what challenges do they face currently which makes it impossible for which reason, a drone would have to fly from 80km away to deliver that in an emergency? Of what purpose would that serve the patient in an emergency? Third, is the gov't able to meet its obligations to NHIS providers and stay up to date with its payments to health facilities as it is, for this added obligation to be met? And what would be the implication of that, in actually getting those 148 items to those health facilities or centers, if there are challenges and patients would still need to get those medications? The figures being quoted are in dollars in Ghana. What is the implication for our forex regime and the currency and monetary policy? Fourth, the GHS Head was at KATH as its CEO. How were they getting those 148 items at KATH. Was there ever a time they didn't have those items? What kind of inventory system did they have? What role did community pharmacies play in such an instance based on their proximity to KATH in addressing that emergency? In his practice, what did he learn when it comes to patients accepting blood transfusion based on say health reasons, and the fact that the blood was not coming from a known trusted family member? KATH is in an urban setting. So let's go to Offinso, St. Patricks where he also worked and ask the same questions. Is it his considered opinion that, a drone service sitting somewhere in Suhum to serve some parts of the Eastern and Ashanti region as well as Brong Ahafo, from what we have read, would be able to meet that emergency medical need when we are looking at an 80km radius of service delivery? Now let's look at the current distribution system. How do we get those 148 items to heath facilities and centers? What inventory systems are they running? What kind of personnel are running them? Are they qualified? In KATH they had Supply Chain Management and Inventory Specialists as well as the other staff, medical professionals who ensured adequate stock of items in the facility. Can that be said for those health centers and facilities being targeted, if they even exist? Now if those personnel are not there, including the qualified health personnel to deliver those health saving interventions to patients, what would a drone delivering those items 30-40 minutes after an emergency, do for the patient? Why would we not keep medications for postpartum hemorrhage in a hospital or center or facility if we have identified it to be a leading cause of maternal mortality? Are we saying it is a recent thing we just found out and we need a drone to deliver such a medication in an emergency? There are a lot of questions we could go on and on and on which would show clearly, those drones for medical supply is never what we need. It might serve the purposes of Rwanda based on their particular situation, but not in our case.