National Ambulance Service & boss lauded for delaying commissioning

The National Ambulance Service and its Executive Director, Professor Ahmed Nuhu Zakaria, have been commended for pushing for a postponement of the commissioning of parked ambulances for Ghana’s 275 constituencies.

After pressure was mounted on the government to have the ambulances dispatched, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced at a meet-the-press session last year that the ambulances will be commissioned and distributed on Monday, January 6.

But before a ceremony is held for the distribution, the Service had called for its postponement with the pretext that training of personnel including paramedics has not been completed while trackers have not been completely fixed on the ambulances, among other reasons.

In a letter through the Ministry of Health to President Akufo-Addo, the Service suggested that the 307 ambulances can be commissioned on Tuesday, January 28, by which time issues surrounding the emergency healthcare buses would have been resolved.

The move by the Service, albeit late, has been talked well of by the Bureau of Public Safety (BPS).

“We urge [the National Ambulance Service] to further dig deeper into issues of everyday running cost for fuel and maintenance,” it said in a statement issued by Executive Director Nana Yaw Akwada.

“It must further seek utmost clarity and preparedness of recipient constituencies on where these service vehicles will be stationed within the constituencies to ensure efficient deployment upon request.”

The Bureau pointed out that the ambulances are the best by far imported into the country.

“We must do everything necessary to ensure that citizens derive the best of use from them.”