From Sammy Asare, Ahafo Kenyasi.
The Health Directorates of Asutifi North and Tano North districts in the Ahafo Region has received a number of Personal Protective Equipments(PPEs) worth Gh 12,000.00 from the trainees of Newmont Ahafo’s Apprenticeship Training Programme to help fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PPEs presented to health directorates which fall within the catchment areas of Newmont Ahafo Mines(NAM) are 4000 pieces of hand gloves, 1000 pieces of face masks, 80 bottles of hand sanitizers(500ml) and four gallons of liquid soap.
Speaking with the media at the forecourt of Asutifi North Health Directorate Office in Kenyasi, capital of the district after the trainees presented the items, a Member of the training programme, Franklin Boakye, explained, now the country is at war with an invisible enemy(coronavirus) so they decided to use their allowance to purchase the PPEs to be supplied to all health facilities in the two district to make the fight successful.
Franklin Boakye revealed that supplying the health professionals with PPEs is the best decision made because they are tagged as frontliners meaning they are at risk most if all the necessary support is not made available to them.
“Once they are protected and fit, they can help us to fight against the spreading of the virus” he said.
He explained, if individuals and companies keep supporting the health facilities with PPEs it will assist the health experts to effectively work without tiredness to fight the deadly virus which has infected people close to 6000 with over 1000 recoveries and almost 30 deaths.
“We subcribe to equipping health workers to motivate them to perform their mandate for all to be safe” Franklin Boakye stated.
However, he commended the managers of the districts for initiating some prudent measures to help the fight. According to him, the closing of weekly market centres, enforcing people to wear face masks when boarded commercial vehicles, tricycle(pragia) and motorbike(okada) are doing magic for the region not to record a case. He encouraged the them to keep eyes on the people to adhere to the protocols.
On behalf of the Asutifi North Directorate, the Health Director, Foster Nyarko, thanked the trainees and explained that the directorate is amased to see them using their allowanaces to assist the fighting of the virus.
In his view, gradually individuals and firms are understanding the need to support health facilities with PPEs aside what the government is doing. He said, there is no way the government alone can provide all the needed items to health facilities to tackle the pandemic so all must assist irrespective of the number of items one can donate.
“Little drops of water make a mighty ocean” the Asutifi North Health Director stated.
On the challenges, he mentioned that still some people refuse to wear their face masks when they are out and it is a worrying situation. He emphasized that still sensitization exercise is on course so they are hoping that those with deaf ears will change.