The timely delivery of medical supplies by Zipline’s medical drone has helped save the lives of 113 students of the Mangoase Senior High School in the Eastern Region.
According to the Headmaster, Seth Tawiah Agbesi, the students had suffered acute diarrhoea on Sunday, June 23.
Mr Agbesi revealed that the diarrhoea outbreak occurred after the students ate groundnut soup with rice as their supper on Saturday evening.
He indicated that probably the food was not well-cooked, resulting in the diarrhoea outbreak.
He, as a result, lamented over the lack of a school bus to convey the students if Zipline’s facility had not been readily available.
According to him, the school’s health centre was contacted and subsequently it was advised that Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) be administered immediately to the students.
But there was no ORS in the school and the health facility at the time, so an order was placed immediately to Zipline Centre at Omenako.
Within 20 minutes, Zipline sent a drone with five boxes of ORS.
Each box contained five packs of ORS, giving a total of 125.
Mr. Tawiah Agbesi was full of praise for Zipline, saying: “I was very very happy. Really, we have benefited. Initially, I thought it was for big hospitals; I didn’t know it was for those of us in the rural areas.”
A teacher at the school, Justice Siaw, who assisted the nurses to receive the medication, disclosed that some of the students visited the toilet about six times and had become pale, making the situation very critical.
He said it became severe but the timely intervention of Zipline gave them a sign of relief.
Very Responsive
A Community Health Officer at the Mangoase Health Centre, Bernice Acheampong, revealed that Zipline has been very responsive to their medical needs.
She said: “When we are short of drugs and we order, at once, we get it.”
She explained that “before if it’s emergency and there is no drug, we have no option than to refer the patients to other hospitals, either in Koforidua or Mampong. With the coming of Zipline, our referrals have drastically reduced”.
Until now, she said, referrals were made to hospitals in Mampong and Koforidua on regular basis.
In most cases, she lamented, motorbikes were used for referrals, taking between 50 minutes and 1 hour travel time.
Roads in the area are in very deplorable state, making transportation a difficult task.
It would be recalled that Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in April 2019, launched Ghana’s largest medical drone delivery service at Omenako, Eastern Region, to improve medical delivery service in the country.
The service, which is a collaboration between the Ghana’s Ministry of Health and Zipline Technologies, would use drones to make national-scale, on-demand emergency deliveries of 148 different vaccines, blood products, and life-saving medications.
The service is expected to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from four distribution centers — each equipped with 30 drones – and deliver to 2,000 health facilities serving 12 million people across the country.
All four distribution centers will make up to 600 on-demand delivery flights a day. Each distribution center will have the capacity to make up to 500 flights per day.
Source: 3news.com|Ghana