Father’s death, other reasons – Bawumia on why he led the establishment of Zipline drone services in Ghana

Speaking at a Youth Connect event as part of his campaign ahead of the December 7 general election, Dr. Bawumia disclosed that the reasons include a personal experience of losing his father due to blood loss following an operation at the Tamale Teaching Hospital in 2002.

“Today, we have brought drones into Ghana to deliver medicines, vaccines, and blood. Many people were dying needlessly because they could not get medicine on time. A snake can bite you on the farm, and you need medicine—anti-ssnake serum immediately. A mother can be giving birth in a village and needs blood immediately. In 2002, my father had an operation in Tamale and he was losing blood. We were looking for blood; the blood bank was locked. We tried to find the operator, but we couldn’t find him. By the morning, my father had passed away,” Bawumia narrated.

He added: “So when I heard about drones and ZIPLINE and what they could do in delivering blood, I took my team and went to San Francisco. We met the ZIPLINE company, and we convinced them to come to Ghana and set up six drone centres in Ghana. We have six drone centres which are delivering medicines, blood, and vaccines to 2700 hospitals and health centres in Ghana. Every day we are saving lives. So far, the drones have flown 540,000 flights, and what is interesting is that all six drone centres are managed by Ghanaians, no foreigners are managing the drone centres. Hundred percent being manned by Ghanaians.”

Dr. Bawumia asserted that currently Ghana is the world’s leading medical drone service, an achievement Ghanaians should be proud of.

“It is very important that recently the US Vice President, Kamala Harris, made a statement congratulating Ghana for taking the lead and the leadership role in medical drone delivery. Why did she say so? Because your own Ghana, our own Ghana, is the whole world’s largest medical drone delivery service, the whole world. We are leading the whole world. A few months ago, ZIPLINE came and took somebody from Ghana to go and train drone flying operators in San Francisco. And so we are taking the lead,” Bawumia added.

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Wednesday, April 24, 2019 launched the drones-for-medical-supplies initiative at Zipline’s first distribution centre at Omenako, a town in the Suhum Municipality in the Eastern Region.

The $12.5 million contract is to enable the Ghana Health Service to fly blood and other essential medical supplies to deprived and hard-to-reach areas.