The Chairman of Parliament’s Health Committee, Dr. Mark Kurt Nawaane, has described the operations of medical drone delivery company Zipline in Ghana as unnecessary and a mistake.
Addressing journalists on Thursday, December 4, he argued that the fundamental challenge facing health facilities is the lack of voluntary blood donors, not transportation constraints as previously suggested by former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, under whose leadership Zipline was introduced.
“Zipline’s presence in this country is a mistake. I’m not being political. It was the brainchild of his Excellency, the former Vice President, Dr. Bawumia,” he said.
“He wrongly diagnosed the problem in Ghana… everybody in the health sector knows that the problem of blood and blood products is not the transportation of these products.”
Dr. Nawaane explained that the main barrier to blood availability remains the shortage of voluntary donors, which compels families, churches and communities to be called upon when patients urgently need blood.
He maintained that if health facilities were adequately equipped with cold rooms and blood storage capacity, they would be able to supply blood when needed without relying on drone delivery.
“The amount of money that we spend on Zipline every month is $528,000,” he stated.
“If for the past five years we wanted to establish cold rooms in all district hospitals and health centres using this amount of money, we should have been able to do it.”
The Health Committee Chair also appealed to medical superintendents to use part of their Internally Generated Funds (IGF) to secure decent accommodation for newly posted medical officers, stressing that housing is often the first concern for doctors reporting to new duty stations.
“What doctors usually look for when they go to any place is accommodation… a decent and safe accommodation,” he said.
“I urge all medical superintendents, please, as I fight for your IGFs to be released to you, use part of it to rent decent accommodations for your incoming doctors and other health professionals.”
