WILL DRONES FIX THE HICCUPS IN OUR HEALTH SECTOR?

One of the most important policies of every president or presidential candidate in Ghana is to provide quality healthcare.There is no doubt that past governments have worked and put a lot of resources in our health sector to improve quality healthcare.

For instance, the  attempt to address the presence of infections and noncommunicable diseases, resulted to the formation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). It also helped a majority of Ghanaians to access healthcare, as it made those who could not afford medical bills enroll.

The delivery exemption policy reduced child and maternal mortality considerably. These and other policies were put in place to engender quality healthcare in the country.

However, poor quality healthcare is still a major problem in Ghana, which I believe the current government is trying to solve.But the introduction of drones to help improve healthcare beats my imagination, especially in this era of economic hardship. 

We now live in a technological world which require countries to rise to the occasion by  their economies in tandem  with changing times. There is no doubt that drones are very fast and can help transport essential emergency medical supplies in a very short period of time as compared to road transport.

However, these unmanned aerial vehicles are not what we need now even though it is a good initiative. The first four drones to be constructed in the country are said to serve areas within the Eastern Region, the Volta Region and parts of the Greater Accra Region.What then happens to the other regions especially now that new regions have been created?

Also, these drones can only carry blood and other compact medical supplies. Government should focus more on supplying hospitals and clinics with ambulances especially in rural and deprived areas. It is really depressing to know that about 29 million Ghanaians share 55 ambulances, thus over 500,000 Ghanaians share one ambulance approximately.

There are several instance where people die due to the lack of transportation to the nearest health centers during emergencies. People in deprived areas suffer most under such circumstances. They contend with bad roads and absence of health facilities.

In most cases, it is only a doctor who prescribes medications as at the level of district hospitals. So patients are transferred to the district hospitals to be treated because rural hospitals do not have the technical capability to give blood. And how would these patients be transferred in situations where there are no ambulances to serve deprived areas?This means that, not all areas can access drones and this makes the whole initiative partial.

The use of the  unmanned aerial vehicles( drones), is a good initiative but government should focus more on providing ambulance which impacts the population more directly, definitely and meaningfully.

#Myopinion# 

Kindly share your thoughts below.