Ms Anne Claire Dufay (2nd left) presenting the items to Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye (middle). Those in the picture include Dr Ebenezer Badu Sarkodie (left), Director, Public Health of the GHS. Picture: GABRIEL AHIABOR

UNICEF supports COVID-19 fight

Justice Agbenorsi May - 12 - 2020 , 16:54 2 minutes read

The Office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Ghana has donated 10 oxygen concentrators and medical accessories to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to support the national COVID-19 response effort.

The medical accessories included 3,000 nasal prongs of different sizes for neonates, 110 pulse oximeters for both children and adults, 140 oxygen tubings, flow splitters, oxygen analysers, voltage stabilisers and surge protectors.

The donation was made with support from the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DfID).

Donation

UNICEF said the presentation in Accra yesterday, formed part of efforts to augment the oxygen-therapy capacity and improve the monitoring of patients with acute respiratory difficulty who were admitted to health facilities where oxygen supply capacity was low.

Presenting the items, the UNICEF Representative in Ghana, Ms Annie-Claire Dufay, said the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted the lives of many Ghanaians.

She said one of the important ways of containing the spread of the virus was tracking and tracing, and said UNICEF was pleased to support the government’s response effort.

She added that the agency would procure an additional 1,000 pedal-operated handwashing facilities to be placed in health facilities across six regions of the country to enhance infection-prevention and control practices.

Essential services

Ms Dufay said UNICEF, along with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other partners, was working with the Ministry of Health and the GHS to develop guidelines on maintaining essential services around maternal and child health nutrition in the context of COVID-19, adding: “We plan to support the dissemination of these guidelines at the sub-regional level.

“UNICEF remains very committed to ensuring the wellbeing of women, children and adolescents in Ghana during the pandemic,” she added.

She urged Ghanaians to continue to observe the relevant protocols for containing the virus.

“Together, we can all play our roles in helping to stem the spread of the virus and ensure we leave no child behind and no one behind,” she said.

Commendation

Receiving the items, the Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, commended UNICEF for the support in the fight against the virus and prioritising the wellbeing of children, especially during these times.

He assured the agency that the GHS would use an effective roll-out strategy for the distribution of the oxygen concentrators and accessories in order to ensure that they got to health facilities that needed them the most.