Nana Asomaniwaa is Caring for Care Givers Through Erith Health Service
Nana Asomaniwaa is a young pharmacist turned entrepreneur, her entrepreneurial inclinations began when she started working in a cancer unit and realised that nurses, doctors, pharmacists and other medical caregivers can contract cancer just through administering care to the patients. This scary thought gave her a business idea.
As a student, Nana had her internship with various health centres and during this period she developed an interest in critical care. In one of the hospitals where she did her internship, she was tasked with the work of giving drugs to HIV patients who also had cancer. After her training, she had her national service at the Ridge Hospital in Accra where she worked with the Anti-retroviral unit; again charged with the responsibility of administering care to HIV patients. Moving on after national service, she was employed by Adepa Pharmacy where she worked for a few years before going to Sweden Ghana Medical Centre, which has a cancer unit.
There, she was trained on how to take care of cancer patients and learned how caretakers can also protect themselves from some of the drugs used by patients, which are rather harmful to people who do not have cancer. This sparked her interest to take an online course in oncology, so she could learn more about cancer, and especially how caretakers can protect themselves. The course not only informed her, but also gave her a business idea!
The beginning of Erith Pharmaceutical and Health Service Ltd.
Nana saw business in providing care for cancer patients and caretakers with the kind of protective clothing they need. She did some reading and research about it online, and then decided to move into supplying some of them to various hospitals. In 2015, she set up Erith Pharmaceutical and Health Service Ltd. and began importing some of the protective gear—gowns, slippers, gloves and other key protective gear which are not produced in the country. Over time she ran out of capital, she however got the right support in funding, business mentorship and training when she was selected on the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme and this support she says has helped revived her business. Currently, she supplies protective gear to Sweden Ghana Medical Centre, the Koforidua Central Hospital and Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.
Nana Asomaniwaa is not limiting herself to only supplying protective gear as she is moving into production. Rather than import all the gear, she has a vision of producing those that can easily be made in Ghana. She also wants to broaden the vision by making it a social enterprise whereby she would partner some NGOs to make cancer drugs available and affordable to the poor and people in rural areas and raise awareness about cancer.
Nana and her team at Erith Pharmaceutical can be reached through their social media platforms here: https://www.facebook.com/erithpharma/
