Founding President IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe has chastised government officials backing the contract to deliver blood and essential medical supplies with drones to rural areas of the country.
He said utterances by Deputy Information Minister, Pius Enam Hadzide and Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare on the deal shows they lack adequate knowledge on the contract.
Mr Hadzide said on Adom FM’s current affairs show, Burning Issues, on Wednesday,December 12, that the drone deal will cost the nation $12 million in four years but Mr Cudjoe says the contract will cost Ghana almost $27 million, countering the Deputy Minister’s claim.
Speaking on the same show Franklin Cudjoe said Mr Hadzide’s has not acquainted himself with facts of the deal.
He also claimed further that Dr Nsiah-Asare has also been making wrong calculations about the cost implication of the deal.
“In fact, in four years we’ll be spending close to $27 million. I think he [Hadzide] hasn’t read the agreement well. You see, a lot of people haven’t read the agreement well so I think they have some fixation on calculations and pricing.
“My friend, Director General of the Ghana Health Service [Dr Nsiah-Asare] is also saying what he wants saying the price of blood would be dependent on the retail price and even in abroad when you look at the calculation for determining the price of blood, you don’t use retail price and his own calculations were also quite faulty,” he asserted.
To those who, according to him, have been questioning whether IMANI Africa is a drone expert, he has the following rebuttal: “you don’t have to be a drone engineer to understand the basics of medical supply especially the supply chain challenges we have.”
The GHS introduced the deal to help deliver blood and essential medicines across the country, particularly to rural communities and was approved by Parliament on Tuesday, December 11, after failing three attempts.
The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has also issued a statement asking the government to suspend the deal, saying the proposed services to be provided by the drones, do not conform to the existing primary health care policy in Ghana.
The GMA said although it is not wholly against the deal, it should be noted that different levels of care have different dimensions to perform specific functions.
“The use of drones without the necessary improvement in the human resource capacity will not inure to the health benefit of the country and its quest to improve healthcare delivery,” the GMA said.
President of the GMA, Dr Frank Ankobeah, speaking on the same show thinks the government introduced the drone system because of allegations that medical doctors refuse postings to remote areas of the country.
He, however, said the Association is in talks with the government to see how the deal will be beneficial to healthcare delivery in Ghana.
Meanwhile, Pius Enam Hadzide insisted on Burning Issues that the deal is the surest way for health delivery in Ghana since many remote areas in the country are not privileged with bigger medical facilities like Korle-Bu and 37 Military Hospitals.
source: myjoyonline
