‘Burnt medical supplies will not affect supplies now’

The Ministry of Health has said the burning of medical supplies at the Central Medical Stores (CMS), on Tuesday, would not immediately affect health care delivery.

“Though hundreds of thousands worth of medicines and equipment have been destroyed, hospital facilities and even regional medical stores have stock of supplies that could last for at least three months whiles we find the solution of restocking,” Mr Tony Goodman, Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, told the Ghana News Agency, in an interview.

Mr Goodman, however, described the effect of the fire outbreak as “devastating”, after a team from the Ministry visited the warehouse later yesterday.

“We also have supplies from the World Food Programme stored in there and this is seriously going to affect us,” he explained.

The CMS is Ghana’s largest drug supply and distribution centre. It also has a large quantity of all the Ebola supplies meant to supply the sub-region should there be a need for it in any country.

Mr Goodman stated that the Minister had set up a committee to investigate the cause of fire that that started at the early hours of Tuesday.

The management of CMS is also to provide the stock of items that were lost in the fire outbreak at Tema.

He said the Ministry was waiting for the report from the Fire Service to ascertain the cause of fire even though there were speculations that it was caused by the security men at the warehouse when they were burning bushes that they have cleared from the surroundings.

A total of 15 fire tenders were assembled to extinguish the fire, which started at around 1000 hours but the warehouse was completely burnt after seven hours.