‘1 constituency, 1 ambulance’ is good if…Ambulance Service Director

The Chief Executive Officer of the National Ambulance Service (NAS), Professor Ahmed Nuhu Zakariah, has described as the ‘welcome news’ the announcement by the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, that  government has initiated processes to provide 275 ambulances to boost the operations of the National Ambulance Service and that each constituency will be given one of the ambulances.

Prof Zakaria said if such number of ambulance if they can be procured to augment the few the NAS is operating with; their operations will be smooth for the country.

The Vice President while speaking at the 2018 Annual Health Summit organized by the Ghana Health Service in Accra on Monday hinted that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) led-government has initiated processes to provide 275 ambulances to boost the operations of the National Ambulance Service.

Dr. Bawumia said “you cannot have a National Ambulance Service without ambulances, it becomes a problem. So the government has through the Ministry of Special development Initiative, which works with the development authorities, begun the processes of procuring ambulances for every constituency in this country, and we have 275 constituencies, so we will procure 275 ambulances, all of which will become a part of the national ambulances system to help in the development of health services”.

Speaking in an interview with the Prime News Ghana, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Ambulance Service (NAS), Professor Ahmed Nuhu Zakariah, said the service is in dire need of ambulance so if all the 275 constituencies will be given an ambulance each, their services will be effective.

Recounting some of the challenges of the NAS since its inception in 2004, Prof. Zakariah mentioned the lack of a dedicated source.

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“The other challenge is inadequate fleet, coupled with the existing fleet being overage, which frequently develops major and minor faults, reducing the number of available vehicles on the road at any point in time”, he said.

Prof Zakaria said “this seriously impedes smooth operations.”

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NAS, however, commended the government for expressing its commitments to strengthening the NAS and called for speedy attention.