Govt procures 275 ambulances

Two hundred and seventy-five ambulances procured by the government are set to arrive in the country by the end of April this year.

The vehicles are to be distributed to all constituencies in the country.

Currently, there are less than 100 functional ambulances operating in some parts of the country.

Interview

The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, disclosed this in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra last Saturday.

He did not mention the total cost of the vehicles, but said “these are being funded from the $1 million per constituency the President pledged in his campaign in the run-up to the 2016 general election.”

He said a team of experts had already assessed the quality of the ambulances and certified them as being consistent with required specifications.

According to Dr Nsiah-Asare, the decision to purchase the specialised vehicles by the government formed part of a grand effort to transform the health sector to facilitate effective delivery of health care in the country.

Situation

For more than four years now some health facilities have been operating without ambulances.

Most of the ambulances acquired in the past have either broken down or cannot be used because they are not fit for purpose.

The situation has forced many people to resort to the use of either commercial or private vehicles as ambulances to convey injured or sick persons to hospitals during emergency.

Dr Nsiah-Asare described the situation as unfortunate and noted that as part of the government’s plan to transform the health delivery service in the country, the new fleet was meant to start a new phase in the sector.

He said the GHS would make sure that beneficiary health centres drew up comprehensive maintenance plans to ensure the durability of the ambulances.