A staff of the National Ambulance Service (NAS) who was shot in the head by highway robbers at Aseseso in the Eastern region on Thursday, has died.
He passed away on Saturday morning, February 6, 2021, at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra.
Doctors at the facility tried to save the life of the 42-year old robbery victim who was brought in as a result of gun shot wounds sustained in the eyes which led to profuse bleeding.
The brain of the deceased at some point was declared clinically dead due to the damaging impacts of the bullets lodged in his head that were detected by a scan.
Abraham Tetteh, a Senior Emergency Medical Technician who lost his life while trying to save the life of a pregnant woman in force labour leaves behind three children and a wife without any comprehensive insurance package or risk allowance as a health worker.
He was also reeling from the loss of a stillborn baby last month.
Sources disclosed that, the leadership of NAS has to for instance make a deposit at the hospital before proper treatment of the victim could commence.
The somewhat precarious situation of ambulance workers coupled with the risk associated with the profession led the Emergency Medical Technicians Association of Ghana (EMTAG) to release a statement, calling on government and other stakeholders to address the situation.
“Armed Robbery and other life threatening attack on our members are becoming a nightmare to the noble profession we cherish. The attacks have been recorded in all parts of the country and they have always gone unnoticed” the statement read.
Barely a month ago, some personnel of NAS on night duty were held hostage until day break in Accra for failing to convey a corpse from a residence.
The association has therefore urged parties to a collective agreement on risk allowances signed in 2016, between Health Services Workers Union and the Ministry of Health to honour the agreement.
“We will also want to appeal to all relevant collaborators in emergency management especially the referring health facilities to do due diligence in their referrals in the night as they will be putting our members in danger.”
“Most of these referrals upon the arrival at scene by our members will most often realized that it could have been managed by the referring facility the next day instead of the night,” the association noted.
The police have also been called upon to conduct swift investigation into the robbery incident.
Two personnel of the National Ambulance Service came under fire from highway robbers operating at Aseseso in the Eastern Region on Thursday dawn.
The officers who were stationed at Somanya were transporting a patient in forced labour from the Akuse Government Hospital to the Koforidua Regional hospital when the said incident happened.
By Issah Mohammed