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The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the National Ambulance Service Simon Yusif Kewura is appealing to the Akufo-Addo’s government, individuals, churches and corporate institutions to assist the service acquire vehicles for effective delivery of their work.
Mr Kewura said they are targeting 20 Ambulances, 2 for each region to augment the fleet of vehicles they have.
He said most of their vehicles which have broken down for the past years are rotting at mechanic shops.
According to him, series of deaths could have been prevented if the service had vehicles to transport patients to the hospitals during emergencies.
‘Yes its true the National Ambulance of late is facing lots of challenges in the area of transportation. About 80% of our activities are based on transporting patients to health facilities. We are on our knees appealing to authorities and even corporate Ghana to come to our aid,’ he said.
Speaking on Ultimate Breakfast Show hosted by Lantam Papanko, he recalled that imported 30 vehicles have been wasting at Ghana Air-force base, Burma Camp in Accra for the past three years because they do not meet World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.
He explained that they were not consulted by the erstwhile Mahama administration to give specifications robust for the country’s roads when the vehicles were bought.
‘The vehicles are not well equipped enough to run its medical service activities. Most of our vehicles are broken and grounded at our workshops, our major problem is our engines have broken down, the engines which need to be fixed are very expensive. The erstwhile Mahama administration imported some vehicles for us, 30 were brought in but we have not been using because they are substandard, they do not contain the necessary equipment. Currently they are parked at the Ghana Air-force base, Burma Camp in Accra,’ he explained.
The PRO of National Ambulance said they are able to work averagely with 40-45 vehicles daily across the country, a situation which makes their work difficult saying the old ones should be replaced.
