EMTs trained to augment government effort

Accra, April 26, GNA - A total of 58 Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) on Thursday graduated from the Ghana National Fire Service Training School to augment government effort at reducing deaths and permanent injuries at accidents sites.

The graduation ceremony was the result of six months of robust training and tuition in subjects, including Physiology and Anatomy of the body.

In a speech read on behalf of the Minister of Health, Madam Salamatu Abdul Salah, Director of Administration, Ministry of Health (MOH), noted the training of EMTs was in line with government efforts to ensure that complete, accurate and timely information was available to all Ghanaians for them to make the right choices about safe health services. This, she said, was because public response to the injured and the sick in the emergency situation was inadequate and often worsened the patients' plight.

She cited the examples of the tragic death of prominent people in society in addition to those who died in the stadium disaster on May 9, 2001 and said they exposed the country's lack of preparedness to handle emergencies and disasters.

She quoted statistics released by the Ghana National Road and Safety Commission in its 2005 annual report which revealed that four people were killed daily in road traffic accidents while 60 per cent of those killed annually were in the active age group of 18-55 years to buttress her point.

Government she said took the challenge to establish an ambulance service with the capacity to respond promptly and effectively attend to all emergency situations to prevent unnecessary deaths. The ambulance service was part of a larger response that would include enforcement of speed limits, drinking laws, use of seat belts, better road engineering with support from other related sectors, she said.

To date, the ambulance service had achieved among other things, the training and deployment of the first three batches of 187 EMTs to 21 locations, including two control rooms of the Fire Service. She said it was her expectation that the 58 EMTs would go out to strengthen the national response to emergency care and the ambulance service would grow and mature to become a major contributor to the reduction of deaths, illness and disability that plagued the country. "Your performance will set the pace for future generation of ambulance crew and will define the reputation of the service, she added. Established in August 2004 in seven locations with nine ambulances, the service has trained 244 EMTs to date.

Mr. Francis Setorzie was adjudged the overall best student while David Teye Otutey and Moses Diameh took the best in theory and practicals respectively. 26 April 2007