Korle Bu Pharmacy Counselling Centre refurbished
The Korle Bu Pharmacy Department Counselling Centre (KPDCC) in Accra has been refurbished by Intravenous Infusions Limited (IIL), a pharmaceutical company.
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The centre now has facilities for group counselling sessions, a waiting area and a place for administering infusions and medications to patients.
It was started in December 2003 to provide counselling for clients diagnosed with the Human Immune Virus (HIV).
The centre intends to widen its scope of operations to include the provision of counselling services for people with chronic ailments such as diabetes and hypertension.
Chronic ailments
According to the Ghana Diabetic Association, about four million Ghanaians are living with diabetes. Diabetes is a known cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.
Hypertension cases are also on the rise, especially among the urban population in Ghana. The prevalence rate is 54.6 per cent as against 19.3 per cent in 2016.
Impact
A board member of IIL, Mrs Gladys Amponsah, said counselling helped sufferers to come to terms with their illness while offering emotional support and coping mechanisms for their chronic diseases.
“Many people on hearing the diagnosis of either diabetes or hypertension will reject it and say, “this is not my portion, I reject it in Jesus name,” she said.
Mrs Amponsah urged the centre to adopt the use of information technology in its operations to enable it to share ideas and information with its clients.
Appreciation
The Director of Pharmacy at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Mrs Elizabeth Bruce, expressed appreciation to their benefactors after recounting the challenges the centre had encountered in its operations over the years.
“Sometimes in the hospital, it is not that the funds are not there, but the processes involved in accessing them can be cumbersome. So we decided to get some companies to assist us. Out of the many organisations we approached, it was only IIL that offered to help us,” she said.
IIL
IIL was incorporated in 1969 and began operations in 1974 as the first pharmaceutical company into the production of intravenous infusions in Ghana.
It was set up to take advantage of the lack of local production of infusions and the country’s total dependence on imports.
It is also into the manufacturing and distribution of drugs, medicines and other medical accessories.