The Greater Accra Regional Office of the National Ambulance Service (NAS) has raised concerns about an increase in prank emergency calls, indicating it receives about 5,000 false alerts each month.
Speaking in an interview, the Greater Accra Regional Manager of the Service, Daniel Asare, stated that this issue is exerting significant pressure on operations.
He elaborated that the high number of prank calls leads to congestion at the dispatch centre, hindering timely responses to real emergencies. Nevertheless, he stressed that policy mandates the Service to respond to every call.
“Prank calls normally happen when you raise a false alarm. There’s no emergency, but you are calling that, somebody is lying somewhere, so the ambulance service should come in. In a month, we can get about 5,000 prank calls at the dispatch centre,” he said.
Mr. Asare also pointed out that some individuals misuse the emergency line for non-urgent or inappropriate requests.
“Some people will call and say, ‘Oh, I’ve eaten, and I’m tired, come and pick me to the hospital.’ Others even call to check whether we have reported for duty,” he stated.
He urged the public to avoid misusing the emergency lines and to utilise the service responsibly.
“Anytime we get a credible platform like this, we want to advise the general public that they should only call when there is an emergency,” he added in an interview monitored by The Ghan Report on Channel One TV.
