Government awaits more ambulances before distribution

The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, says Ghanaians should exercise patience in calls to have ambulances parked in front of the State House distributed to health facilities across the country.

He says government is awaiting more of the ambulances before starting distribution.

About 98 ambulances have been parked for weeks in the face of shortage of such medical supplies in some of the country’s major health facilities.

The lack of ambulances in some key health facilities in the country is said to be one of the causes of high mortality in rural areas.

The National Ambulance Service despite having 130 stations share about 55 ambulances.

With over 98 parked for weeks without any apparent reason, Ghanaians have expressed outrage about the situation.

The Ranking Member on the Health Committee of Parliament, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has given the government three days within which to distribute the procured ambulances.

But Mr Agyemang-Manu says government does not want to distribute the initial 98 as it awaits more to have an even distribution across the various facilities.

“At the moment if we start distributing, it will be like we are scrambling for food that we haven’t had for a very long time,” he said on Thursday in Accra.

“So, I plead with the nation and you to hesitate a little bit.”

According to him, 307 ambulances in total were procured with some arriving in the country soon.

For him, the ministry wants to have at least half of the total procurement before starting allocation as it does not want to be accused of discrimination.

But Mr Kandoh told TV3’s Komla Klutse on Thursday that the wait for all consignment to arrive before distribution is “senseless”.