Death of six-year-old boy not our fault - Ambulance Service

Boss of National Ambulance Service (NAS), Prof. Ahmed Zakaria, has said it would be unfair to wholly blame his outfit for the death of a six-year-old boy in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region.

According to him, the emergency response system comprises pre-hospital emergency care, and then inter-facility or Intra facility emergency care.

He said, “Once this boy was knocked down by a [vehicle] and he got into a regional hospital, obviously, the basic [thing to be done] is stabilise him and keep him alive until such a time that they may seek expert care definitely should be provided at the hospital level.”

The six-year-old was knocked down by a motorbike and rushed to the hospital Saturday afternoon with severe traumatic brain injury.

He was then referred to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital due to the seriousness of his condition, however, there was no ambulance to convey him for the emergency attention.

Information gathered by Starr News indicated that the entire Lower Manya Krobo has been without an ambulance for several months as the only ambulance has broken down.

But commenting on the development yesterday, Prof. Zakaria said: “Once, we jump and we put [the blame] on the ambulance service we are losing so much because for example if the child of that age was knocked down by a vehicle and if he had died on the road then definitely we will understand that the pre-hospital response would have contributed in saving his life.”

“Once, he got into a health facility the question then was what was done? How severe was the head injury? Was he incubated and put on a life machine awaiting transportation to another facility? What was really done to be able to sustain his life?

“If we take it from that angle it means that we tackling the problem holistically. But, as soon as we jumped into the conclusion that the boy died because there was lack of ambulance we are losing focus because then it means that we will only go into the blame game, especially lambasting the ambulance service and we will not focus on our emergency response system in its totality,” he added.