Distribution of 275 ambulances to be done before end of 2019 – Health Minister

The Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, says the government will by close of this year distribute about 275 ambulances across all constituencies in the country as promised.

Earlier indications from the government were that the ambulances would to be ready by the end of April this year.

Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson later admitted that the Akufo-Addo administration’s promise of one ambulance per constituency was being held up by procurement challenges.

Now Mr. Agyeman Manu, who was speaking at Binaba during a two-day visit by President Akufo-Addo to the Upper East Region assured that the promise should be fulfiled by the end of 2019.

“The health sector is so lucky that by close of the year, we should have completed distributing close to 275 ambulances to all districts of this country.”

These ambulances are being funded from the $1 million per constituency the President pledged in his campaign in the run-up to the 2016 general election.

Ambulance needs

The state of Ghana’s ambulance service has been described as critical as a country of about 29 million people only has 55 functioning ambulances serving all 10 regions.

Ghana currently has 155 ambulances, 100 of which have broken down due to various faults, many of them engine-related.

The National Headquarters of the Ambulance Service in Accra has only four ambulances.

Per the regional distribution, the Greater Accra region has the largest allocation of the scarce resource, with nine, while the Central Region has the least number of ambulances, with just two, although there are 10 service centres in the region.