The Medical Director of CareFlight Ghana, Dr Issaka Yakubu Akparibo, has called on regulatory bodies in the country to strengthen the capacity of healthcare professionals in emergency care.

Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb TV on Thursday, October 9, 2025, he urged the Medical and Dental Council as well as the Nursing and Midwifery Council to make life support training a mandatory part of continuous professional development (CPD) programs.

“I would urge the Medical and Dental Council and the Midwifery Council to also make this part of the mandatory CPDs that healthcare providers need to take. By doing so, when we have emergencies or when they are called to respond to emergencies, they will be able to provide the right standard of care to patients,” Dr Akparibo said.

GHS begins vaccination against HVP nationwide

He expressed concern over the poor handling of emergency cases in hospitals across the country.

“When you go to hospitals and healthcare facilities across the country, people collapse or go into cardiac arrest, and as healthcare providers, we often get confused. We don’t even know what to do, and that reduces the survival chances of patients,” he observed.

HeFRA crackdowns on unlicensed health facility operators

Dr Akparibo noted that adherence to international best practices could dramatically improve survival rates.

“We know that if you are able to perform the various maneuvers that the American Heart Association recommends, the chances of survival for the patient could be as high as 84 percent. For instance, a few years ago, when Christian Eriksen, the Danish footballer, suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch, the first responders knew how to perform CPR and use an AED. That saved his life, and today he is still playing soccer. This is where we want our country to get to, where people who suffer cardiac arrest can be revived and return to their normal lives,” he explained.

CareFlight Ghana, a leading medical rescue and emergency service provider for the public as well as the mining, aerospace, and oil and gas sectors, has become the first Ghanaian medical facility to be certified by the American Heart Association (AHA) as an International Training Center.

This certification allows CareFlight Ghana to provide globally recognized training in Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) for healthcare professionals, as well as CPR, First Aid, and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) training for schools and the general public.

Watch the video below:



JKB/MA

Decomposed body of US-based Ghanaian woman discovered three weeks after death