{"id":5386,"date":"2018-12-12T16:41:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T16:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/ghana-drones-row-over-blood-delivery-devices\/"},"modified":"2018-12-12T16:41:39","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T16:41:39","slug":"ghana-drones-row-over-blood-delivery-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/ghana-drones-row-over-blood-delivery-devices\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana drones: Row over blood-delivery devices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Hospital in Accra\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/14DD9\/production\/_104756458_mediaitem104756456.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Critics of the scheme say Ghana has many other health problems that are more pressing<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">A row has broken out in Ghana over the government&#8217;s decision to buy unmanned drones to deliver blood and essential medicines.<\/p>\n<p>The government wants the drones to deliver to hospitals nationwide, especially in remote areas.<\/p>\n<p>Some MPs say they want more spent on clinics and ambulances instead of what they call a high-tech vanity project.<\/p>\n<p>Government minister Pius Enam Hadzide rejected the criticism, saying the plan sought to improve health services.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/world-africa-46505864\" class=\"story-body__link\">BBC Africa Live: More on this and other stories<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Ghana Medical Association called for the immediate suspension of the newly approved drones deal, arguing that it would not solve the country&#8217;s health problems and needed to be tested on a trial basis first.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hadzide, the deputy minister of information, said he was &#8220;taken aback&#8221; by the comments, saying the association had been consulted. But he also said &#8220;our doors remain open for further engagement and consultation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme was recently approved along partisan lines by 102 votes to 58, and is set to be implemented next year.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-with-caption\">\n<div class=\"player-with-placeholder\">\n            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media-placeholder player-with-placeholder__image narrative-video-placeholder\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p065wfvb.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Media playback is unsupported on your device<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"media-with-caption__caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Media caption<\/span>WATCH: Drones deliver blood supplies in Rwanda<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A US company, Zipline International Inc, is to be paid more than $12m (\u00a39.5m) to run the project for four years.  <\/p>\n<p>Opposition MP Cassiel Ato Forson said the government had negotiated an &#8220;extremely bad&#8221; deal with Zipline.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s Favour Nunoo in Ghana says that earlier this year it was reported that the country had fewer than 55 ambulances serving a population of 29 million.<\/p>\n<p>He says this has angered some members of the public who think the drones scheme is not appropriate given the challenges that exist in the health sector. <\/p>\n<p>The case of drone use in Rwanda has been cited by supporters of the Ghana deal, our correspondent says, but critics argue that Rwanda at the time had a more robust healthcare system.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-africa-46543442\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Image caption Critics of the scheme say Ghana has many other health problems that are more pressing A row has broken out in Ghana over the government&#8217;s decision to buy unmanned drones to deliver blood and essential medicines. The government wants the drones to deliver to hospitals nationwide, especially in remote areas. &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}