Member of Parliament for the Nabdam Constituency in the Upper East Region, Dr. Kurt Mark Nawaane says Ghana has not reached the point where blood will have to be transported by drones, as being pushed by the Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia.
According the Nabdam law maker, Ghana still has problem with basic needs at the Health Facilities and these have to be addressed, before moving on to transport blood with drones from one point to the other.
“We need to work on our supply system to get the Blood Banks stocked with blood and once there is blood, we can now talk about transporting blood, as the government wants to do. Our problem with blood is about availability. There are no blood at the Health facilities at the district and even regional levels.”
Dr. Kurt Mark Nawaane was speaking in an interview on A1-Radio in Bolgatanga in the Upper East, in connection with Minority rejection of government’s investment in Drones for Transportation of Blood and other medical supplies.
The Nabdam Member of Parliament and Owner of a Medical Facility however agrees that with technological advancement, transporting medical supplies by drone is not out of order and will not be bad to introduce that system in the Ghanaian Health delivery system.
“My only problem is that, we have not reached that stage, because of the situation we find ourselves in. Our facilities that have blood banks are not able to properly keep these blood, while many others don’t even have blood banks. In Ghana the voluntary blood donation spirit is down. You can’t also blame the people, if you are hungry, how do you donate blood?”
According to Dr. Nawaane if government insist on investing in the venture, Ghana will not have value for money, because there may not be enough blood to transport with the drones and yet, government will bee paying for the service.
“Getting the drones is not the problem, it is not so expensive, a time will come you can own a drone and I can also own a drone. The problem is the monthly payments to the Company that will be setting up the operational facilities. It will be waste of money by the government if this agreement is pushed through.”
Meanwhile, some New Patriotic Party sympathizers and communicators who called into the programme, chastised the Minority in Parliament and the Member of Parliament for Nabdam, Dr. Nawaane, describing them as people who do not wish the country well.
In their view, the Minority in Parliament is refusing for Political reasons, especially as the investment will go a long way to bring an improvement into the Health delivery system of Ghana, and also attract some credit to the government.
Source: a1radioonline.com /101.1MHz /Ghana
