The Abuakwa North Municipal Assembly in the Eastern Region yesterday sensitised its members and other stakeholders on the importance of Zipline Distribution Centre located in Ominako, a suburb in the municipality.
It was to educate assembly staff on how the drones were used to deliver medical service to the various health centers in the region.
Led by the Municipal Chief Executive, Alhaji Umar Bodinga, he said the exercise was also to enable the members of the assembly acquaint themselves with the day-to-day operations of the Zipline and how medical services were packaged and delivered to the various health facilities within the municipality and the region at large.
“I believe that our today’s tour is very important for me because the assembly members have had full education on how the Zipline operates, therefore I am sure when they get to their respective electoral areas, they would be able to tell the people in their villages how important the centre is to our health care delivery in the municipality.”
Alhaji Bodinga explained that though the centre was purposed to provide medical services to the health centres, it was also a standard place to promote Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
He, therefore, encouraged the assembly members and school authorities within the municipality to take advantage and organise excursions for their pupils to increase their desire to pursue engineering courses in future.
For her part, the community leader for the centre, Ms Shemau Muniru, who took the entourage on the tour to the supply storage room, packaging unit, drone set-off and landing unit, as well as the monitoring unit, said the facility has, since 2019, been providing both consumable and none-consumable medical delivery services to health centers in the Eastern Region.
She said the centre currently served about 2000 health facilities covering about 70 percent of the health care centre in the country.
Six centres, two of which were located in the eastern region, were at Ominako and Anum.
The others were at Mpanya, Obsi (close to Walele), Sefwi Wiawso in the Western region, and Krachi in the Oti Region.
She said the presence of Zipline had come to solve the country’s healthcare supply chain issues and the other challenges associated with the healthcare supply chain by ensuring equity in the supply of health stock to the various health facilities in the country.
Ms Muniru noted the centre collaborated with the government through the regional medical stores, expanded programme on immunisations and the national blood service, delivering services to hard-to-get health centres across the country.
FROM KODJO DAVID, OMENAKO
