National Ambulance Service needs help
To say that the National Ambulance Service (NAS), which operates under the Ministry of Health, is in need of urgent support is an understatement.
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All over the world, one of the critical ingredients of health delivery is an effective emergency ambulance service, which is why investment in the service must be a priority for the government.
Certain situations demand immediate medical care for victims and any delay in that respect could cause precious lives or aggravate the suffering of victims or patients.
Therefore, apart from saving lives, especially during accident situations, an effective ambulance service reduces the suffering of victims and patients before they are given medical attention.
The service operates from ambulance stations established in strategic locations, from where the ambulances respond to emergency calls.
It is against this background that the Daily Graphic thinks inadequate funding for the NAS, which has resulted in its inability to meet its demands, leaves much to be desired.
The Daily Graphic of August 24, 2017 carried the story of an establishment that is gasping for breath. The NAS, which has been serving society since 2004, is on life support and needs priority attention from the government to enable it to deliver the quality service Ghanaians demand of it.
We find it untenable, for instance, that ambulances operated by the NAS are currently just over 100 and that at any point in time only about 55 are operational, with the rest in the workshops because some of them are old, overused and should be replaced.
According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NAS, Prof. Ahmed N. Zakariah, Ghana, with a population of about 27 million, needed at least 500 ambulances to operate an effective emergency system.
He said last year the service had expected 200 new ambulances to augment the existing fleet but procurement challenges resulted in only 30 coming and even then they were found to be defective.
We continue to be a nation that does not set its priorities right. But for how long can we continue to travel that unacceptable path when we have the capacity to turn things the right way?
It is little surprise that there has been no improvement in response times. The revelation that it takes between 20 and 25 minutes to respond to emergencies in Ghana, when the internationally acceptable time is eight minutes, speaks volumes about the challenges in the sector.
The Daily Graphic is aware of the efforts the CEO of the NAS and his team have been making within the constraints to improve service delivery, but we believe that this will come to nothing if ambulances which lie at the heart of the service’s operations are unavailable.
We appeal to the government to resource the NAS, so that it can deliver on its mandate. The time for a better NAS is now.
