Northern Regional Directorate of GHS receives tricycles

The Northern Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has taken delivery of 10 modified tricycles to help ease the difficulties faced in transporting medical supplies from the district level to health facilities in rural and hard-to reach communities in the region.

Donated by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an international nongovernmental organisation (NGO), the tricycles are to help solve the challenges of health commodity supply chain management (HCSM) system in the region.

The CRS, apart from helping to solve the transportation challenges faced at the district level in healthcare delivery in rural communities, has also supported with the upgrading of facilities for the storage of materials in the beneficiary health facilities at a total cost of $86,000.

Beneficiaries

The tricycles are expected to serve 70 Community-based Health Planning and Service (CHPS) compounds in six districts in the Northern Region. The beneficiary districts are Gushegu, Karaga, Kumbungu, Mamprugu -Moaduri, West and East Mamprusi municipalities.

Twenty-five modified tricycles with improved features were also presented for use in rural communities early January, this year, which brought the number of such ‘ambulances’ to 75.

Handing over the tricycles, the Country Representative of CRS, Mr Kris H. Ozar, said the gesture was to bridge the transportation gap that existed between the district level and the CHPS compounds.

He stated further that the CRS, in collaboration with the Health Commodities Management Team within the Regional Health Team, developed the Health Commodity Transport Vehicles using terrain appropriate modified tricycles.

Mr Ozar said from June 2017 to May 2020, CRS Ghana was investing over $10 million to support child health, improve coverage for community-led total sanitation and support Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) education in schools.

“In all, 456,786 beneficiaries will be reached across 560 communities, CHPS compounds and 138 schools across 10 districts of the Northern and Upper East regions,” he added.

He added it was expected that the partnership between GHS and CRS would be further strengthened through this initiative and the operational challenges associated with the Health Commodity and Storage Management (HCSM) system would be well documented to inform future programming and scale-up plans, as this intervention was one of the key strategies at the heart of the health portfolio both at the CRS West Africa Regional Office and Headquarters (USA).

Partnership

“We will continue to partner the Ghana government to expand access to key interventions in health, agriculture, livelihood and WASH, as well as emergency Relief and recovery to deprived and rural communities of Ghana,” Mr Ozar added.

The Northern Regional Director, GHS, Clinical Care, Dr Braimah B. Abubakari, said the gesture and the support would go a long way to solve the problem of the distribution of commodities to health facilities by ensuring that the ‘real last mile’ CHPS compounds received all the needed commodities.

He said that would make the delivery services the best in the country and possibly expand it to the entire region and expressed his gratitude to CRS for the kind gesture.