President Akufo-Addo commissions 307 ambulances in fulfillment of the '1 constituency 1 ambulance initiative

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday commissioned and distributed the 307 ambulances recently procured to help augment operations of the National Ambulance Service (NAS).

The new ambulances are to be distributed in all 275 constituencies in Ghana in fulfilment of the government’s 2016 election campaign to help improve emergency healthcare delivery.

The programme is under the Ministry of Special Development Initiative christened, “One Constituency, One Ambulance”.

Speaking at the ceremony to commission the ambulances in Accra Tuesday [January 28, 2020], President Akufo-Addo said 145 new ambulance stations have been created to bring to 275 the total number of ambulances stations in Ghana.

“Government is committed to ensuring an effective Emergency Medical Service (EMS) to help improve our country's emergency response capabilities," the president said.

Funding sources

President Akufo-Addo said a National Ambulance and Service Bill which identifies the funding sources of the National Ambulance Service (NAS) was being worked on and will soon be forwarded to Cabinet for consideration.

He said the government has provided a digitized state of the art ambulance dispatch management system integrated with national digital addressing system where all emergency calls will automatically generate the address to enable the control centre to determine the nearest ambulance to dispatch and also allow the ambulance to identify easily any health care facility suitable for the emergency.

As part of the operations of the National Ambulance Service, 450 Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) have been trained.

According to the Ministry of Health before the commissioning of the 307 ambulances, there were only 50 functioning ambulances.