'Ghana’s medical drone the largest in the world' – Akufo-Addo touts

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says Ghana is developing a comprehensive primary healthcare package for her citizens that will translate into better health outcomes, lower costs, and healthier families and communities.

He said this when he delivered a statement at the launch of the “Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All” on September 24, 2019, on the sidelines of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

He told the gathering that Ghana has “launched the world’s largest medical drone delivery service to some fifteen health facilities, as part of the first phase of the service.”

President Akufo-Addo, together with the German Chancellor and the Norwegian Prime Minister, is one of the initiators of the Global Action Plan, explained that the Plan is to help urge countries and the World Health Organization to co-ordinate a process of developing an action plan to propel progress towards realising SDG No. 3.

The plan, he explained, is a historic commitment by 12 partner agencies, who are working together towards achieving SDG 3, i.e “ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all at all ages”.

“We agree, and are confident that the execution of the four (4) strategies outlined under the Global Action Plan and the seven (7) accelerators, i.e. sustainable financing, primary health care, community and civil society engagement, determinants of health, R&D, innovation and access, data and digital health, innovative programming in fragile and vulnerable states and for disease outbreak response, will strengthen the implementation of the Plan,” the President said.

Ghana, according to the W.H.O, is already well advanced in the performance of some of the accelerators.

“In the area of sustainable financing, we have revived our National Health Insurance Scheme, which, for a minimum subscription, guarantees access to a wide array of healthcare services,” President Akufo-Addo said.

He continued, “We are also leveraging the use of technology, with some of our healthcare facilities, before the end of the year, going paperless. Ghana has also deployed an electronic platform for logistics management information systems for the distribution of drug and non-drug commodities in the country.”

Nonetheless, in Ghana, based on the Global Action Plan and the Universal Health Coverage 2030 Compact, the President told the gathering that Ghana is re-strategising on her healthcare architecture, and, thus, also urged all countries to examine critically their delivery chains and map them out so as to identify the weak links and rectify them, adapt the Plan to their local contexts, and adopt people-centred approaches to the realisation of the Plan.

“The Global Action Plan should not be a moment, it has to be a movement. My Government is committed to improving access to essential and quality health services through the provision of the necessary health infrastructure, equipment and logistics, including the deployment of appropriate technology, as part of our drive to attaining Universal Health Coverage,” President Akufo-Addo said.