MTN Ghana Foundation has donated 44,000 pieces of Personal Protective Equipment, four
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machines and test kits to the National COVID Trust.
The donation comes at an estimated cost of GH¢5million and is to enhance the protection of all health personnel fighting against COVID-19 in the country, and also to support testing-scale and speed. The donation comes at a time when the nation is highly in need of PPEs, test kits and PCR machines.
Speaking at the presentation, the Board Chairman of MTN Ghana Foundation, Prof. Franklyn Manu said: “We are aware the enormity of challenges facing the nation are due to COVID-19, and the MTN Ghana Foundation Board thought the best way we could help was to provide PPE for health workers and equipment for testing facilities. Today, we are pleased to donate PPEs and essential medical equipment worth five million Ghana cedis (GH¢5million) as our commitment toward the fight against the pandemic”.
The items comprise the following:
- N95 Masks – 10,000
- PPE disposable coveralls – 7,500
- PCR machines – 4
- Gloves – 10,000
- Virus sampling kits 10,000
- RNA Extraction kits – 3,000
- Infrared Thermometers- 500
- Disposable Bedsheets – 3000
Prof. Manu said: “The Foundation received several requests from a number of partner hospitals, but we thought we should provide the bulk of our donation to the National COVID Trust for onward distribution. It is our hope that they will facilitate and further enhance the fight against COVID-19 in the country, and keep our health workers, patients and families safe”.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, used the occasion to congratulate President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the government for taking the needed measures in managing spread of the disease in the country – adding that, “As a result of government’s interventions, our country has been highly ranked among nations which are taking the right measures in the fight against the pandemic”.
He said: “At MTN, we acknowledged that we have a major role to play in this fight against COVID-19 right from the onset, and this continues to be paramount for us. This fight can only be won if we all come together as private organisations working in collaboration with government on the singular focus of defeating the deadly virus. You can be assured of MTN’s continued commitment to this cause”.
MTN Ghana since outbreak of the virus has supported Ghanaians with many interventions to lessen impacts of the pandemic on the nation’s socio-economic infrastructure. Key among such interventions are: Collaboration with the National Information Technology Authority (NITA) to offer all government workers free access to the Smart Workplace Portal to support government’s ‘work from home’ programme; protecting the customer through provision of critical health information; providing free Internet access to over 200 websites for online education for public and private institutions; free MoMo transfers up to GH¢100 a day; and revision of MoMo wallet limits.
MTN Ghana also brought to bear its leadership in the technology space by supporting the infection monitoring and contact tracing teams through the provision of 800 SIM cards and 8 Terabytes of data to National Security, and 10 TurboNet fixed wireless devices with over 2 terabytes of data to the COVID-19 Response Team for use by contact tracers. MTN has also deployed mobile money merchant accounts as collection conduits to support government institutions such as the Ministry of Finance and the First Lady’s mobilisation fund for COVID-19.
SOURCE thebftonline.com