Forest call centre: Residents of Kpaloworgo travel hours to access mobile network

Residents of Kpaloworgo are calling on telecommunication companies to extend their services to their community to save them the stress of having to travel for over an hour into the forest just to make a phone call.

Residents of the small community in the Wa East District of the Upper West region say the connection at the spot they go to make phone calls is not even stable, as a result, they sometimes end up getting nothing out of their long-hour journeys.

They are very unhappy about the situation and they often feel as though they are not part of Ghana.

“Some people in Ghana sit in their rooms to make any type of calls that they want but for us, you have to look for a motorbike to fuel and go to that place to make a call… At times you think as if you’re not even part of Ghana. When you come back to this village it’s as if you’ve just gone back into a hole,” Ajara Adams, a resident said.

Sadly, several lives have been lost due to the unavailability of mobile network services to contact health officials during emergencies.

Eliasu Halidu who lost his wife two years ago during childbirth says they couldn’t get access to any mobile network to call an ambulance to aid them transport her to a hospital when she developed complications.

The unavailability of network services has also handicapped a CHPS compound in the community as workers there can’t make the necessary phone calls to determine the best place to transfer patients when the need arises.

Watch the full story below