The sub-standard ambulances
The Ghana Ambulance Service has indicated that only 55 out of the 155 ambulances it currently has are functional.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the National Ambulance Service, (NAS), Prof Ahmed N. Zakariah, the other 100 ambulances stationed at various ambulance service points across the country have become faulty, many of them engine-related.
“It is a fact that about 100 of them normally have various degrees of fault. Some have engine problems, and for them, they would need complete new engines,” he said.
Prof Zakariah further attributed the faulty nature of the ambulances to the bad road networks in the country.
“The reality is that many of these vehicles work in places where the road network is poor and for that matter, the vehicles tend to develop major challenges,” he said during an interview on Citi Breakfast Show yesterday.
He stated that the remaining 55 are stationed in different parts of the country to offer emergency health responses and basic life to support to the Ghanaian population.
Prof Zakariah explained that the absence of a dedicated source of funding has compelled the Service to rely on the meagre allocation from government, making it impossible for the service to repair the faults in the 100 ambulances.
He hinted that many of the ambulances are left at mechanic shops because “the Service does not have a dedicated source of funding so when we have major issues that are capital intensive; it means we have to wait till we get some support from the ministry because we receive the same level of budgetary allocation just like any other agency. What we receive is far lower than what our budgetary needs are, so we have a multiplicity of factors that impede our smooth operation.”
Prof Zachariah also lamented that some 200 ambulances which were promised by the former Atta Mills’ administration did not materialise because the first batch — 30 ambulances — shipped into the country were not up to standard.
He said if the Service had received those 200 ambulances, the challenges facing the Service would have been minimised.
He, however, urged the vice president to honour his promise of providing them with 275 ambulances nationwide.
“If the 275 that the vice president spoke about are procured, it will help because every constituency would have an ambulance,” he added.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri