The delivery of medical supplies by one of Zipline's Medical drones has helped save the lives of 113 students of the Mangoase Senior High School in the Eastern Region.

The school’s headteacher, Mr Seth Tawiah Agbesi, said the students had suffered acute diarrhoea on Sunday, 23 June 2019.

He revealed that the diarrhoea outbreak occurred after the students ate groundnut soup with rice as their supper on Saturday evening.

Mr Agbesi said he suspects the food was not well-cooked.

The school had no bus to convey the students to the hospital and, so, he said he felt relieved came to their aid.

According to him, a 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 the Zipline Centre at Omenako.

Within 20 minutes, Zipline had sent a drone with five boxes of ORS. Each box contained five packs of ORS, a total of 125.

Mr Tawiah Agbesi commended Zipline, saying: "I was 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 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.

He said the situation became severe but Zipline saved the day.

Very Responsive

Also, a community health officer at the Mangoase Health Centre, Bernice Acheampong, said 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 in the past, “if its 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 a regular basis.

In most cases, she lamented, motorbikes were used for referrals which takes between 50 minutes and an hour.

Roads in the area are in very deplorable state, making transportation a difficult task, she added.

About Zipline Ghana

Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia in April 2019 launched Ghana’s largest medical drone delivery service at Omenako, Eastern Region, to improve medical delivery services in the country.

The service, which is a collaboration between Ghana's Ministry of Health and Zipline Technologies, uses drones to make national-scale, on-demand emergency deliveries of 148 different vaccines, blood products, and life-saving medications.

The service would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from four distribution centres — each equipped with 30 drones – and make deliveries to 2,000 health facilities serving 12 million people across the country.

All four distribution centres will make up to 600 on-demand delivery flights a day. Each distribution centre will have the capacity to make up to 500 flights per day.


Source: Ghana/ClassFMonline.com/91.3FM