Ministry of Health increases ambulances at district hospitals

Accra. Oct. 29, GNA-The Ministry of Health has adopted a policy to equip and increase the fleet of National Ambulance Service to open ambulance stations in all the various districts.

Consequently, the Ministry is no longer allocating ambulances to health institutions as was the case formerly. "This we believe will serve the whole community in the district instead of stationing ambulances in the health facilities", Major Courage Quashigah, the Health Minister announced the new policy as he answered questions on the floor of Parliament in Accra on Wednesday. His answer was part of a response to a question in the name of Mr Henry Kamel Ford (NDC-Buem) on why an ambulance which was allocated to the Jasikan Hospital in the Volta Region had been re-allocated to the Worawora Hospital and if there were any plans to re-allocate another one to the hospital.

The Minister said the Ministry detected that it had made a mistake during the distribution of ambulances when the Jasikan Health Centre was allocated an ambulance rather than the Worawora District Hospital which was a much bigger hospital and served a much larger community much larger community and therefore reallocated the ambulance. Later in the day, the House ratified a Credit Facility Agreement between the Government of Ghana and Messrs Euroget de-Invest of SA OF Egypt for an amount of US$180 million for the construction of a 500-bed Military Hospital in Kumasi. The House also passed the Stamp Duty (Amendment Bill) and the Value Added Tax Amendment No. 2 Bills).