The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH) says that the extent of pollution in Ghana’s water bodies due to
illegal mining (galamsey) activities, is making it increasingly expensive for pharmaceutical companies to treat water
for the manufacturing of drugs and medicines.
Dr Samuel Kow Donkor, President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH), who made this known, said
water pollution was one of the gravest threats confronting public health.
“Ghana currently enjoys self-sufficiency in the local production of infusions, but illegal mining threatens this
achievement. All the local manufacturers put together in this country can produce all the intravenous infusions we
need in Ghana. However, they need quality water to do that.
“If this environmental degradation continues, we may soon face the grim reality of importing water to support our
local manufacturing industry,” he declared at the opening of the 2024 annual general meeting of the PSGH in
Kumasi.
He said the pollution from these mining activities was so severe that expensive technologies were often required to
treat the water, which had contributed to the cost of medicines.
A report has estimated that five tons of mercury are released annually from small-scale mining operations in Ghana.
“This toxic burden is unacceptable. We call on the government to take urgent, decisive action to put an end to this
lawlessness. We must protect our environment, our water, and the future of our local industries before it is too late,”
he stressed.
The Daily Searchlight believes that possible shortage of intravenous infusions is just the tip of the iceberg, in as far
as the ramifications of the destruction of Ghana’s water bodies is concerned.
We believe that in the health sector alone, the cost of ensuring cleanliness in the hospitals, wards and theaters, where
the spill of body fluids is a daily occurrence, would balloon massively as water becomes more and more scarce.
A similar effect would manifest in the agriculture sector, as finding uncontaminated water for food produce becomes
harder to achieve.
In future, the chemicals that have found their way into the water and into the food chain would also manifest
themselves in disease, which would have to be combatted at cost.
Illegal mining has wreaked a havoc on the nation that is possibly worse than war, and would cost the nation billions,
in the end.
We hope that the numerous warning signs the nation is experiencing, would finally push the President, who has been
vacillating and sitting on his hands, to take action.
(Editorial of the Daily Searchlight of 30 th September, 2024).
