Madam Esther Coffie presenting the assorted medical supplies items to Naa Baligi III
Escof Zinnia Foundation, a health and education-focused humanitarian organization, has delivered assorted consumable medical supplies worth more than GHC 1000.00 to Kpare Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) to improve healthcare in the rural community.
Officials of the health facility located in the Lambussie District took delivery of multifarious pain killers, anti-malaria drugs, blood tonics and antibiotics among other supplies to aid healthcare delivery.
Madam Esther Coffie, the founder of Escof Zinnia Foundation, who presented the items to the facility, said access to medicines was an important component of delivering quality healthcare services to the populace.
The donation followed a passionate appeal made by the staff of the health facility when the Escof Zinnia Foundation Founder visited the Church of Pentecost in the community recently.
The Foundation had been working to improve access to quality healthcare and education in several parts of the country since 2016.
In 2017, it supported school children at Nkyenoa in the Eastern Region and organised eye screening for Deideman community in the Greater Accra Region.
Madam Coffie advised the community members against self-medication and also urged them to desist from sharing drugs with others, when given a medical prescription as the practice could result in serious complications.
“I want to tell you that you should not do self-medication because you don’t know what actually the sickness is; malaria and fever like this have similar symptoms but different treatment,” she said.
“You can also take under-dose or overdose and this can complicate the situation and you will have to spend more money to treat yourself”.
Naa Baloree-Zumoh Baligi III, the chief of Kpare, lauded the foundation for the support saying Kpare CHPS was one of the most visited facilities in the district.
He said, “Available records show that about 320 people visited the facility in September 2019 to seek medical care,” and added, but “lack of drugs has led many people to do self-medication”.
Naa Baligi III said the growing patient attendance rate has exerted enormous pressure on the health facility, logistics and medical supplies as well as forcing some of the nurses to be using their salaries to buy medicines for the facility.
He called for public support and other philanthropic organisations to emulate the gesture of Escof Zinnia Foundation to help the community people have access to quality and timely healthcare.
Mr Haruna Bayong Suglo, a Community Health Nurse at the facility, assured the community and donors that the items would be put to good use and in the supreme interest of patients.
Recounted how patients seeking healthcare were sometimes required or forced to buy drugs on their own from over-the-counter chemical sellers due to lack of medicines at the facility.
He was optimistic that the items would go a long way to improve quality health service delivery to the people.
