Correspondence from Upper East Region

The Builsa South District Assembly in the Upper East Region has donated some sanitary equipment and material to the District Health Directorate in the wake of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the country.

The donation is an addition to efforts by the Assembly to ensure the safety of residents against the viral pandemic.

The Assembly assisted the health directorate with items which included, 23 bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, 15 Veronica Buckets, 10 packs of tissue paper, two dustbins and 10 boxes of liquid soap.

Daniel Kwame Gariba, the District Chief Executive, who presented the items to the health authorities in Fumbisi Thursday said, the presentation was to enable the health directorate to adequately prepare and ready itself for the containment of any eventuality of the pandemic in the area.

“We are here at the health directorate to make some presentation of items to help us combat what we all know as COVID-19. Since the outbreak, the district assembly has liaised with authorities at the top to see how best we can fight it at our local level too. As a district, we must not sit aloft and watch what is happening in other parts of the country. It is for this reason that we’ve made frantic efforts to make sure that we also provide at least basic sanitation material and equipment to help the situation in our district”.

He said the items would be distributed to the various health centres in the district to support them run effectively to encourage and boost the trust the people have in the health facilities to deal with any suspected case.

Mr. Gariba, who was happy the district has not recorded a case of the disease yet, has assured to ensure the infection finds no place in the area, saying “the assembly will continue to do its best to make sure the people are safe from the disease”.

He commended President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the measures he has instituted to mitigate the spread of the spread and possible havoc on Ghanaians, expressing hope the disease would die out.

“We all know the president at the top is doing his best to make sure that we wipe it out of Ghana and minimize the cases. And some results in that case is being achieved which is commendable”.

Ahmed Halutie Ramatu, the district deputy director in charge of public health, who received the items on the District Director’s behalf, said the presentation, which was second after an initial donation from the Assembly, have come at a time when it was needed most.

She noted that the items would be distributed to the health facilities who do not have such equipment to address the deficit and encourage staff to perform well. “we thank you for the items donated to us today. We least expected this from the district assembly because we already had some items from them and we thought that was all. Little did we know that the biggest items were on their way coming. These items have come at the right time for us to distribute to the other facilities for them to start working. The little that came first were distributed to them and they are working with it”.

She thanked the District Chief Executive, district assembly and government for the support and appealed for more equipment to enable the directorate successfully fight the spread of the disease to the area.