We need good roads in our country not drones – Hannah Bissue

The National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) National Women’s Organizer, Hannah Louisa Bissiw, has questioned governments commitment to supply the country with drones in a bid to improve health care delivery especially in hard-to-reach areas.

The Akufo-Addo and Dr Bawumia led administration had promised the provision of the drones to deliver on-demand and emergency deliveries of vaccines and life-saving medications to remote communities for improved access to health services.

The government in 2019 launched the first-ever medical drone delivery service in Ghana at Omenako, near Suhum, in the Eastern Region and later opened other distribution centres in Sefwi Wiawso in the Western Region and Mampong in the Ashanti region.

Earlier in February 2022, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) commended the service provider, Zipline, for the strenuous efforts made towards helping improve maternal, new born and child health services in the country.

According to the GHS, maternal deaths in 2018−prior to the introduction of the drones−was at 875 but in 2019, the figure had reduced to 838. In 2020, deaths further reduced to 776.

Furthermore, Dr. Bawumia during a lecture at the Ashesi university said “as at September 2021, each drone centre has an average of 100 flights a day to deliver medicines and blood; Drones have delivered 3 million doses of routine vaccines to rural areas since 2020; 130,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were delivered to rural Ghana; Delivery of Covid samples for testing.”

Despite the figures provided, Dr Bissiw who was a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Tano South in the Ahafo Region, contended that drones are not what the country needs.

According to her, “what we need are the good roads” that the government has stopped constructing, and accountability.