The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Bagbin, on Wednesday, September 28, 2022, on behalf of the sons and daughters of the Upper West Region, presented a fully equipped ambulance to the Wa Regional Hospital.
Though the Speaker contributed a huge chunk of the money for the purchase of the ambulance, he saluted all citizens from the Region who saw the initiative as a laudable one and encouraged them to continue with the effort to achieve rapid development for the Region that has been considered as one of the poorest regions in Ghana.
Presenting the ambulance, Rt. Hon. Sumana Bagbin said the donation demonstrated the power and impact of commitment and community involvement in improving living conditions and achieving what once was thought of as a distant possibility.
“Today’s event is a manifestation of what we can do as individuals and as members of the community to improve upon our livelihoods,” he added.
Rt. Hon Sumana Bagbin said the provision of the ambulance would go a long way to augment the existing health delivery systems within the community. Whilst the ambulance alone cannot meet all the pre-hospital healthcare needs of the community, it responds to a very critical need.
He continued, “We must ensure that measures are implemented to integrate the ambulance services into the community healthcare processes…I also recommend to managers of the ambulance service to ensure the judicious use of the ambulance.”
The Speaker suggested the following measures that could be useful in the maintenance of the ambulances at their disposal and among which he proposed that there should be a policy or guidelines for the use of the ambulance, Adequate training of personnel to operate the ambulance, maintenance, and management of ambulance as well as Ensuring quality standards and improvement.
He further added that “fortunately, there exist several known state and private institutions to provide the hospital with the needed guidance, the National Ambulance Service, the Wa Teaching Hospital, and the private ambulance services are about a few of these institutions that, with good collaboration, could offer significant benefits for managing the ambulance. With time, I am very optimistic that many more of these will come our way to help fix the health delivery deficits in the region.”