…Ghanaians in Rwanda tells politicians
From, Felix Dela Klutse, Kigali, Rwanda
One of the greatest challenges facing the global health industry is how developing countries like Ghana can keep a proper supply of life-saving medicines in rural areas.
In some countries, governments keep low stock due to the high cost of storage — a reality known as “stock outs” — meaning it can sometimes take up to four hours for life-saving medical supplies to arrive in some destinations.
Investigations conducted by Business Day has revealed that Ghana Government spends roughly $300 million yearly to purchase drugs for the central medical store. It is however, sad to note that most of the drugs do get expired, causing the country to lose $82 million yearly.
This amount is bigger than the entire 2018 budgetary allocations for many ministries in Ghana including the Ministry of Trades and Industry, which was allocated GHC 419 million (a little over $80m) in 2018.
The poor healthcare delivery system in the country is causing many rural folks including women and children to die like chicken. Some patients have to travel for many hours on a motorbike before accessing a good hospital. Urban cities have about 70% of healthcare facilities in Ghana. Consequently, patients in the rural areas have to rely on traditional medicine, a situation that had shortened the life spans of many energetic rural folks over the years.
A classical experience was where a drug dealer prescribed one drug for headache, stomachache, foot rot, toothache among others evidently seeking to reach as many customers as possible with the same drug.
In order to arrest the aforementioned situation, some governments, especially those in Africa, are increasingly deploying drones (a mini-aircraft) as healthcare solutions. For instance, Malawi is currently testing a scheme where drones transfer blood samples to and from hospitals to speed up HIV diagnoses in infants.
In Papua New Guinea, report says samples from people in remote areas with suspected tuberculosis are being delivered to hospital via drone. Rwanda has already deployed drones to deliver essential medical supplies and blood to doctors in rural locations, a success story wealthy of emulation by the Ghanaian Government.
Spending money on life-saving technology
Two Ghanaian residents in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, says spending few millions of dollars on a life-saving technology that will transport medical supplies to hospitals in Ghana and save lives of the masses would not collapse the Ghanaian economy.
The government, according to them, should deploy the drone technology as quickly as possible, noting that, a similar service in Rwanda had improved healthcare delivery.
Dr. Douglas Mensah, a lecturer at Rwanda Business College told Business Day: “It is dangerous for Ghanaians to politicize health matters. Spending money to save lives should be a top priority of every government.”
He added: “pregnant women, who are in dire need of blood in the rural areas, as well as Ghanaians being bitten by snakes, who need urgent anti-snake venom, may not have political colours.”
Contributing, Janet Mensah, a business woman in Kigali said: “instead of transporting essential healthcare products by vehicle which would take a lot more time, the drones can deliver within the shortest possible time so lives could be saved.”
“This is not a drone that is used to take pictures as perceived by Ghanaians but a mini-aircraft,” she explained, adding that the masses in Ghana should look at the health benefits than the cost that would be incurred.
Background of Ghana-Zipline Deal
Ghana’s government has signed a deal with a U.S. firm, Zipline that will see unmanned drones delivering blood and other medical supplies to hospitals and clinics for a period of four years at a cost of $12 million, according to the BBC. Ghana’s government has insisted the deal will see critical medical supplies reaching disconnected areas and improve the nation’s overall medical supply chain.
Under the agreement, government will be expected to pay $88,000 to Zipline per a distribution centre in a month. If in a month 15 deliveries are made, the government will only pay $11,000 while 50 deliveries will attract a payment of $27,000. The government will only pay the full $88,000 when 100 or more deliveries are made by the company, a source close to the company told Business Day.
Recently, the Director-General of Ghana Health Service, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare indicated that looking at the over 500 health facilities that the drones will be serving, the maximum cost that will be incurred at each health facility for the services will be $175.
Further information picked by Business Day during a visit to operations of Zipline in Kigali revealed that the drones will continuously be built and assembled in Ghana, which will help give employment to over 200 Ghanaians (engineers, flight operators and pharmacists). The company is also expected to use Ghana as assembling point and also help transfer technology to the youth in tertiary institutions.
There will the four distribution centres and at each distribution centre, there will be a minimum of 20 drones or a maximum of 50 drones which in effect means a total of maximum 200 drones would be deployed to distribute essential drugs.
For instance, Suhum has been selected as a distribution centre which will serve over 500 health centres across the whole of Eastern Region, Greater Accra Region, Volta Region and part of Central Region.
The Head of Communications for Zipline, Justin Hamilton, said when fully deployed, Ghana will become the first country in West Africa – and the largest in the world – to implement a delivery system of this kind. A date for the launch of the project is yet to be specified.
How Zipline drone works?
When a patient comes in needing a transfusion, a doctor or healthcare worker sends a WhatsApp message or logs into Zipline’s ordering site to place an order.
Back at the Zipline distribution center, a drone is packed up, launched and arrives at the clinic 20 to 40 minutes later, dropping the package near the clinic for the healthcare worker to retrieve.
Evelyn Mensah, a Ghanaian Pharmacist based in Kigali told Business Day that “a country like Ghana where most of her roads are unmotorable, having access to a service like Zipline can mean the difference between life and death.”
She said there as the need for Ghana to use drones to deliver commodities and services where time is of the essence and cases are rare.
This, she noted, would be useful for blood transfusions for road accident victims, as well as for snake anti-venom, which health clinics do not often stock due to the infrequency of cases but which needed to be administered within hours in order to save the victim.
Rwanda Experience
Zipline has been operating a blood delivery service in Rwanda since October 2016. It now transports over 20% of the nation’s blood supply outside Kigali. The drone delivery service has slashed the delivery time of life-saving medicine to remote regions of Rwanda from four hours to an average of half an hour.
The partnership between Zipline, a Silicon Valley robotics company, and the country’s health ministry has delivered over 5,500 units of blood over the past year. Never before have patients in the country received blood so quickly and efficiently.
While commercial drone delivery is still at the testing stage, hampered by busy skies and strict regulations on airspace, Zipline is delivering blood to all the regional hospitals from a base in Rwanda. Each hospital serves about half a million people. The Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority had created an air corridor for the drones to prevent collisions with larger aircraft.
The use of drones is helping to reduce maternal deaths in the country – a quarter of which are the result of blood loss during childbirth – and high incidences of malaria-induced anaemia, which is common in children. Drone delivery is also helping hospitals to store less blood, which means less waste as blood spoils quickly.
“Some of the biggest, most powerful technology companies in the world are still trying to figure out how to do this. But East Africa is showing them all the way,” Dr. Richard Usabyineza, Director-General of Ruhango Provincial Hospital in Rwanda told Business Day.
He added: “The work in Rwanda has shown the world what’s possible when you make a national commitment to expand healthcare access with drones and help save lives.”
In Rwanda, when a doctor or medical staffer at one of the clinics needs blood, they send a WhatsApp message or log on to Zipline’s order site. They are then sent a confirmation message saying a Zip drone is on its way.
The drone flies to the clinic at up to 80mph. When it is within a minute of the destination, the doctor receives a text. The drone then drops the package, attached to a parachute, into a special zone near the clinic before returning to base. The technology company, Zipline, had developed a system where drones are catapulted by zip wire into the air.
Partnering with the government of Rwanda, Zipline uses over 100 drones capable of 2,000 daily flights, delivering medical supplies to more than 1,000 public health facilities in the country. Each of the four distribution centres, which has attracted so many tourists over the years, has a minimum of 30 drones, each capable of carrying a three-pound load.
The Rwandan health ministry authorities said in a statement that: “The ministry of health and Rwanda Biomedical Center are happy to use such innovative technology to reduce the average delivery time from four hours to less than 45 minutes, with quick and reliable delivery of blood products.”
Mr. Felly Kimenyi, Opinion Editor of The New Times in Kigali, who had reported severally on Zipline Operations, told Business Day, Ghana needed to embrace the drone technology to enable her start benefiting from it.
