The Auditor-General’s report for 2021, says the National Ambulance Service’s (NAS) approach to ambulance management cannot sustain the country’s provision of a responsive emergency medical service.
Routine servicing schedules and maintenance procedures, according to the report, were not followed.
The report also revealed that the service failed to pay insurance premiums, failed to insure some ambulances, and neglected to perform routine maintenance.
According to the report, these challenges led to a yearly reduction in the ambulance fleet.
Additionally, despite the use of staff to carry out maintenance activities, third-party service providers inflated invoices for labour to the detriment of NAS.
The situation did not ensure efficient use of resources, the report added.
NAS was unable to meet the internationally accepted response time in providing emergency medical services in the country and effectively track the movement and use of the ambulances, the report disclosed.
EMTs were not trained as expected, and where training programmes were offered, it was not targeted to address a specific staff competency gap.
The analysis of the A-G also discovered that as of December 2021, 29 ambulances out of the 307 ambulances commissioned in 2020 were involved in RTA, the report added.
According to the report, NAS provided 14 police reports out of the expected 29.
Nine of the fourteen police reports blamed the ambulance drivers for negligence, lack of care, and attention.
These accidents caused serious injuries and, in some cases, the death of those aboard the ambulance.
This confirms that the lack of CDs and regular defensive driving training has a negative impact on NAS operations.
According to the report, NAS staff training was not based on identified staff knowledge gaps, and training was not organized on a regular basis.
The report recommended that NAS develop a program for training for EMT drivers and non-drivers based on staff training needs identified and institute refresher courses regularly for drivers and non-drivers to improve their skills.
In its response, the management of NAS agreed to the findings and recommendations for implementation.
It stated that the 2022 annual work programme, had been revised to include defensive driving refresher training for 200 EMT drivers.
By: Rashid Obodai Provencal/Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
