Ghana News–Ghana is faced with a major health crisis that jeopardizes the lives of millions of its citizens.
The country of 29 million people only has 55 functioning ambulances serving all ten regions.
While the situation is not new, it has reached a level that requires urgent action, and not just the attention of health authorities. Ghana currently has 155 ambulances, 100 of which have broken down due to various faults, many of them engine-related.
The remaining 55, are stationed in various parts of the country to offer emergency health responses and basic life support.
There are also 130 ambulance service stations in the country, and each is supposed to have at least one ambulance, but due to the limited number of functioning ambulances in the country, many of the service centers ‘work’ without them.
The National Headquarters of the Ambulance Service in Accra has only four ambulances.
Per the regional distribution, the Greater Accra region has the largest allocation of the scare resource, with nine, while the Central Region has the least number of ambulances, with just two 2, although there are 10 service centers in the region.
The infographic below gives more details of the distribution of ambulances in the country.
The statistics indicate that 1 ambulance is shared by over 520,000 Ghanaians.
That ratio is well above the appropriate ratios of between 1:50,000 to 1:100,000 as suggested by experts.
It is worsened by the growing burden of acute diseases in the country and rising cases of motor accidents.
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There are so many challenges in Ghana but this situation calls for emergency response.
Hmmmm…….Nana Addo, Bawumiah and the NPP have lots of work to do. Ghana was indeed breaking down
As a foreigner I look at Ghana and think to myself that the serious adverse issues which the people of Ghana are faced with could be overcome without much difficulty. I do not believe a lack of funds is the main culprit as many, probably most would say. Even with considerably more funding I believe the same old challenges and dysfunctions would raise their ugly head unless preventative action is taken. This action would be a mix of several simple bi partisan strategies and methodologies emanating from a central point with a ripple effect that would engulf the country in increasing prosperity. Yes, I totally believe it would be possible to engage a bipartisan approach!
The challenges are all about the inability of individuals, businesses and larger organisations to strive for best practice and perfection at many levels and in many ways. It is my experience that most look for blame and excuses to cover their own failure and a lack of determination to succeed in best practice. Corruption also raises its very ugly head in too many ways and too many places at too many levels.
I have had many, many unfortunate experiences in Ghana, all of them unnecessary and preventable and related to my comments above. I feel so sad to see the state of the country when I know much of it is fixable. I say this as a person who spent a fair part of his life repairing dysfunctional national and regional organisations in my country.