By Ita Bassey
The Governor of Cross River State, Sen. Prof Ben Ayade has assured Cross Riverians of effective and efficient health care system. The governor made this statement during the official commissioning of Zipline Technology, a health care organization that utilizes drone to deliver drugs within few minutes to remote and urban areas.
According to the governor, "Cross River set up one of the most sophisticated pharmaceutical factory in Calabar, the Calapharm, manufacturing all sorts of drugs,including medicines,antibiotics, vaccines, for children and the sick. In order to have optimum value for our pharmaceutical factory, we needed to partner with Zipline to serve as a major source of drug supply to Zipline whose core precept is essential service and logistics support system."
Ayade further buttressed that "with the setting up of this Zipline in Cross River State, Ogoja LGA, it will serve over 300 health centres. Our primary health care structure will therefore take care of all challenges of our people. With the Ayadecare health insurance, whose major responsibility is to cater for people who can't afford health care services from hospitals, Zipline will be our logic consultant whose core precept is to receive drugs from our supply chain system, from our medical welfare program and deliver this drugs to various primary health centres including private health centres as it will happen from time to time.
And I think that this is particularly unique. The beauty of it is that Zipline will deliver the drugs on time, it will be quality drugs and reliable. The fact that a journey otherwise that would have taken 6 hours to deliver a sensitive item like blood can be delivered in 30 minutes by Zipline."
While delivering her welcome message, the General Manager of Zipline Nigeria, Mrs. Catherine N. Odiase, commended the state governor for partnering with Zipline technology to bring efficient health care delivery services to the people of Cross River and assures Cross Riverians of effective services across the state.
She appreciated the First Lady, Dr. (Mrs.) Linda Ben Ayade, for initiating the idea of bringing down Zipline technology to Cross River. She stressed that Zipline technology is an international health organization that is situated in five African countries, Rwanda, Ghana, Côte D'ivoire, Kenya and Nigeria. According to her, "Zipline technology has saved a lot of lives across countries that it is situated. We applaud the state Governor for facilitating the construction of Zipline company in Ogoja."
Speaking also at the epoch making event, the Honourable Commissioner For Health, Cross River State Ministry of Health, Dr. (Mrs.) Janet Ekpenyong described governor Ben Ayade as a man of his words who keeps to promises. She also stated that the governor made a promise to bring Zipline technology to the state when the idea was birthed by Dr. Betta Edu and Dr. Linda Ben Ayade. According to her, "it gives me so much pleasure to be here; that we are launching the first Zipline project in Cross River State. In 2021, the governor sent us to Ghana to go and understudy Zipline to see what was happening and see how we can ensure that same thing could be replicated in our state. We returned from Ghana after the training and in 2022, we formally flagged off Zipline technology in Governor's office and today, Zipline is a reality."
Dignitaries from all works of life graced the occasion. Highpoint of the event was the official lunching of the drone, cultural display and photographs.
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