Emergency medical supplies worth over 112mln birr delivered to northern Ethiopia, services reinitiated
Addis Ababa, December Ministry of Health stated that the Government of Ethiopia is providing humanitarian response and reinitiating essential services in Tigray in collaboration with partners for the last one month.
The Ministry of Health disclosed that it is providing and facilitating the delivery of life saving and essential medications and supplies and working on reinitiating health and nutritional services in collaboration with other sectors and humanitarian partners.
From the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Supplies Services (EPSS) Gondar hub, essential medical supplies worth over 13.4 million birr were transported to the EPSS Shire Hub and being distributed to healthcare facilities in Shire and other nearby cities and towns, the Ministry said.
From the EPSS Dessie hub, a total of 20.4 million birr worth of medical commodities were distributed to Alamata and neighboring health facilities.
Through the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), anti-malaria medicines, insulin for treatment of diabetes mellitus, dialysis consumables, TB- drugs, anti-hypertensive, family planning commodities and others lifesaving medicines with estimated total cost of more than 78.7 million birr were shipped to Mekelle.
A total of 158.3 metric tons of essential medicines and medical supplies were brought to Mekelle and the nearby health facilities by international and UN partners to Mekelle and other cities. Additional supplies are made ready by EPSS to be sent soon, it is learned.
The Mekelle and Shire branches are receiving and distributing life kits, medicines and medical supplies in a proper manner.
“To assess the state of the healthcare facilities in the areas and facilitate the resumption of services, a team of leaders and experts from different health facilities were sent by the Ministry of Health to Shire, Axum, and Adwa.”
Shire, Axum and Adwa hospital and nearby health centers were assessed; and in these facilities, most staffs are returning to provide care to the community.
In Shire Sihul hospital, 411 of the hospital’s 520 staff have returned to their previous duties, the Ministry indicated.
The hospital was able to resume providing outpatient, inpatient, emergency, laboratory, and pharmacy services by making use of the medical equipment and supplies that were already there in addition to those that had been just delivered.
A total of 3,524,000 birr was sent to be utilized as a payment for health care providers who started service to resume Essential health services in three hospitals and 15 the health centers in Axum, Shire, and Adwa.
Ministry of Health further stated that its staff members were sent to the areas to facilitate the process and have begun paying health care providers at Shire.