The Chief Executive Office of the Ghana Ambulance Service, Prof. Nuhu Zakariah Ahmed says that his outfit sometimes delays in responding to emergency cases in the country because of the nation’s bad address system.
[contextly_sidebar id=”momNno2FrOfbWjj7dCFjePD3LFjmAo9o”]He said though they have over 1,700-trained paramedics and 133 emergency stations across the country, the addressing system hampers their work.
Prof. Ahmed was speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday in response to numerous complaints about inefficiencies in the country’s health delivery system.
“Our response time delays sometimes because of the geographic location because we don’t have the ambulances dotted all over the country. The other reason is that elsewhere they have a real structured first responder system in a form of the Police department or the fire department. It means that the first to respond is the Fire Service or the Police because they have response team everywhere followed by us. With that kind of system, response time is very swift. In our jurisdiction, we don’t have the first responder system so everything depends on the National Ambulance service hence the reason for the delay,” he said.
Prof. Ahmed lamented that though they have the capacity, the idea and the men to work with, the lack of resources is impeding their work adding that “we don’t have enough vehicles because the international ratio to one ambulance to a population is one over 250,000 but Ghana currently we are doing one to over a million so we don’t have adequate resources.”
He further called on government to provide them with an “air ambulance system” to enhance their efficiency saying “it’s long overdue.”
He added that in “Ghana, we don’t have an air ambulance system. We’ve realized that … it’s more than a luxury it’s a necessity that we have an air ambulance system. If you have an emergency in the country, which needs air evacuation, it becomes a challenge and sometimes by road, the mortality rates are very high.”
The CEO of the Ambulance Service observed that though personnel from the service are not supposed to charge for services rendered during emergency situations, he said some defy the directive and extort monies from innocent victims.
He however warned personnel indulging in such acts and further called on Ghanaians to report culprits for appropriate sanctions.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin