The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has commenced processes to facilitate the local production of hand sanitizers for health facilities in Ghana.

Supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the move is geared towards helping the fight against COVID-19 and curbing further spread of the disease.

This comes after a woman identified as Rev. Dr. Nana Yaa Owusu-Prempeh shared how the failure of the hospital to treat her young nephew's case with emergency resulted in his death.

While making the revelation, she mentioned among other things, that the emergency ward of the hospital, where her nephew was rushed to after suffering a fall in the bathroom, did not have any sanitisers at the time of their arrival.

Sharing her ordeal in a viral video, she said; "We get there, first thing, I want sanitisers for my hands, and there are no sanitisers at the emergency room at the Korle Bu Teaching hospital."

Meanwhile, the production of sanitisers, according to the UNDP, falls in line with the programme's multi-pronged approach to support the national COVID-19 response by promoting effective health care waste management.

"This ranges from monitoring and enforcement of best practices, training of frontline workers, provision of reference manuals and logistics (PPEs and consumables) for health care waste management, to reduce risks and infections," a statement released by them read.

Chief Executive Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Daniel Asare, reacting to the move, thanked UNDP for responding to the call by the President, His Excellency Nana Akuffo-Addo, on all stakeholders to support local innovations.



“For us in the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, this partnership is a demonstration of the capacity that exists locally in harnessing innovations to accelerate development. We thank UNDP for believing in our capability." He said.

Through the intervention, UNDP has also donated some 11,150 litres of hand sanitizers (5,000 pieces of 230ml bottles and 2,000 pieces of 5 litres refill bottles, with 162 dispensers) to the Ministry of Health to support 21 key facilities playing leading roles in the testing and management of COVID-19 cases across the country.