Health Ministry auditor wants Ghanaians to pay for Ambulance Service

An Auditor with the Ministry of Health, Edward Fiawoyife, has suggested the commercialization of the Ghana Ambulance Service.

The struggles of the Service have been widely noted due to low investment by government into emergency care and the health sector in general

Mr. Fiawoyife says the absence of donor support has also left the Service without a reliable stream of funding.

This means, the Service is unable to maintain its fleet of vehicles and sustain its service. He was speaking at the release of a health and education sector corruption impact assessment.

“So as a nation, if we know that the Ambulance Service that takes care of our emergency situation, one way or the other, we should have a way of financing the ambulance service,” he said.

“Is it going to be taken care of by the national health insurance or the outpatient at the point where you are being discharged or even if you die, when your family is coming for the body, they pay for the service?”

The state of Ghana’s Ambulance Service has been described as critical, considering that as a country of 29 million people, there are only 55 functioning ambulances serving all 10 regions.

Ghana currently has 155 ambulances, 100 of which have broken down due to various faults, many of them engine-related.

The National Headquarters of the Ambulance Service in Accra has only four ambulances.

Per the regional distribution, the Greater Accra region has the largest allocation with nine ambulances, while the Central Region has the least number of ambulances, with just two, although there are 10 service centres in the region.