The COVID-19 National Trust Fund has presented Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and other medical items to five institutions to support the fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the country.
The beneficiary institutions, the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, the Ga East Municipal Hospital, the Jubilee House Medical Centre, the Ghana Ambulance Service, and the National Commission on Culture, received thermometer guns, virus sampling kits, coveralls gowns, and KN95 nose masks.
They also received disposable bed sheets, veronica buckets, pulse oximeter, liters of hydrogen peroxide, carbolic soap, washing powder, hand and surface sanitizers, hand gloves, cartons of bottle water, among other items.
The Board of Trustees, Chaired by Retired Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, presented the items to the beneficiary institutions at a ceremony at the Jubilee House in Accra yesterday.
The National COVID-19 Trust Fund was established by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last year to complement the efforts of the government to combat the COVID-19 pandemic by providing the avenue for private individuals and entities to donate moneys and resources to help fight the pandemic.
Since the establishment of the fund, the Board of Trustees has distributed relief items to over 210 institutions including medical facilities, isolation centers, testing centers, and CHP compounds across the country.
The board has also provided food and non-food items to homes for the aged, children’s homes, traditional authorities, vulnerable and needy institutions, and other vulnerable persons affected by the pandemic.
Justice Akuffo said as at December last year, the fund had disbursed relief items and cash disbursements amounting to GH49.2 million and added that the total amount received at the same period was GH57.1 million, leaving just about GH7.8 million in the covers of the fund.
She said there were several request for support from numerous organisations and needy institutions across the country and appealed to benevolent institutions and individuals to donate into the fund to enable the board support COVID-19 frontline workers and vulnerable persons affected by the pandemic.
“We are not government sub vented agency and, therefore, do not receive monetary support from government. We rely on the benevolence of Ghanaians. But I must indicate for emphasis that from October 2020 to date, it was only Tuesday February 9, 2021 that we received a donation of GH5,000”
“You will all agree with me that with the various commitments yet to fulfill, and request for more contributions and support from various organizations, it is through the support of Ghanaians that we can continue to be in operation,” he said.
The former Chief Justice appealed to corporate organizations, private individuals, groups associations and private NGOs to come to the aid of the Trust Fund to contribute in cash and in kind to support the Trust Fund
“We need to do more by still reaching out to every medical facility in the country by providing vehicles, medical items, PPE, veronica buckets, hand washing equipment, surface and hand sanitizers, food items, beverages, gloves, food and non-food items, nose masks, etc especially in this period that the virus is spreading at an alarming rate in almost every corner of the country,” he said
The beneficiary institutions thanked the Board of Trustees for the support.
By Gifty Lawson