Tolon health center to get an ambulance

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Tolon district Wahab Suhiyini has promised to provide the Tolon Health Centre with an ambulance to facilitate effective health delivery.

Speaking on Radio Tamale’s Absolute News, Mr Suhuyini said he was aware of the lack of an ambulance and its impact on health service delivery in the area.

Quality health care delivery is hampered in the District as a result of the lack of ambulance. The situation is said to be causing avoidable deaths in the area.

The Tolon district health center which is a referral health facility for neighbouring districts and serving satellite health centres in the area has been without an ambulance for the past two years.

A physician assistant, Anthony Asare who oversees the facility said in an interview with Radio Tamale that the lack of ambulance was leading them into a distress situation, adding that the situation was hampering efficient discharge their duties.

“Transportation is a big challenge for us here. We don’t admit patients, we detain patients within 24 hours. When the case is beyond our capacity, we have to send it to the next level. Over here our immediate referral point is Tamale West, so most of the time when we are to take cases to Tamale it becomes a problem here.

Because in this community there are no commercial vehicles where you can rely upon taxi or anything, the national ambulance service in this district are not functioning,’’ he said

Mr Asare, revealed that beginning of this year the health center recorded two maternal deaths due to the lack of an ambulance to refer her to Tamale on time.

“I quite remember that from January to now we have recorded two maternal deaths. The assembly has a pickup which is always ready for us, but they close at 4pm and they don’t work during weekends,” he added.

Touching on other challenges facing the health centre in the district, Mr Asare said the basic challenge was lack of water to run the facility.

He said the situation had forced health authorities in the area to ask patients to bring gallons of water to the health center for their own use.

“Water flow is a big problem for us, because in this era of infection prevention control, water flow is very essential. Look through the window you can see an overhead polytank which is supposed to supply us water, but certain times it cuts off so you will see that the whole place we don’t have water, if women are coming to deliver we tell their relatives to go with gallons and bring water.

Sometimes the water flows but our sink is not connected, water does not flow through the facility, you are doing dressing there is no water, all this doesn’t help us,” he lamented.

The MP assured that as soon as a District Chief Executive (DCE) is sworn into office, he will collaborate with the assembly to acquire an ambulance for the district.

He gave the assurance that he will provide a regular water supply system for the facility to help solve the water problem there.