Ashanti Region health directorate appeals for new medical stores
The Ashanti Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Fred Adomako-Boateng, has appealed for the construction of new medical stores to help in the storage of medicines and non-medicines.
“To address the current supply chain management systems and warehousing, there is a need to either expand the existing infrastructure or construct a new facility to serve the required purposes,” he stressed.
He made the appeal when the Ashanti Regional Minister, Dr Frank Amoakohene, toured the facility and interacted with staff last Monday.
Visit
The minister also visited a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) funded PSA oxygen plant located at the Tafo Hospital, which is expected to supply oxygen to health facilities in the region.
The regional medical stores were constructed in 1978 when the region’s population was about 1,375,000. At that time, most of the current hospitals were health posts, but now the region has 129 clinics, 162 health centres and 269 hospitals.
Dr Adomako-Boateng stated that currently, the medical stores do not have space and can no longer serve the purpose for which they were established.
Power fluctuations
He stated that the facility faced frequent power fluctuations as it was connected to the grid, which supplies power to other adjoining areas, and added that, “our stores [facility] does not have its own transformer, resulting in power fluctuations with its attendant consequences on the commodities stored over there.
“Due to the increasing demand for medicines and commodities in the stores, there are constant power fluctuations, thereby affecting the potency of medicines and vaccines under storage.”
To ensure the quality of medicines and items being stored at the stores, he appealed for the installation of a dedicated transformer to stabilise the power situation and enhance its operations as well.
Oxygen plant
Touching on the PSA oxygen plant, he noted that the facility, which was handed to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in July this year, had not been operationalised to serve the intended purpose of supplying oxygen to health facilities in the region.
He said that the non-operationalisation of the plant had forced the Tafo Hospital and other facilities to source oxygen on the open market, especially from private organisations, to be used for clinical purposes.”
To address the situation, he appealed to the Ministry of Energy and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to take immediate steps to install a 550KVA transformer at the plant.
Need
Speaking at the end of the tour, Dr Amoakohene admitted that there was a need for the construction of new medical stores to meet the demand of the growing population in the region and further commended the directorate for the local production of some essential medicines for use in the health facilities.
Responding to the need for more casual staff at the stores, he promised to engage with the National Youth Agency to deploy some youth with the needed skills to support the directorate in the local production of medicines for patient management.
On the power issue, he directed that a letter be sent to the ECG and pledged to follow up with the Ministry of Energy for the provision of transformers for the medical stores and the PSA oxygen plant.
“The PSA oxygen plant is a huge investment by UNICEF and the necessary steps must be taken to operationalise it, in order not for it not to become a white elephant,” Dr Amoakohene stated.
Writer’s email:
