Monday, 16th March, 2026
Hon Abdul-Khaliq Mohammed Sherif
Nanton
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to bring this Statement, which is on the emergency care deficit in Ghana.
Mr Speaker, I rise today, not only as a Member of Parliament, but also as a medical doctor, to draw your attention to a matter of life and death, which is the growing emergency care deficit in Ghana.
Mr Speaker, emergency care is not a luxury. It is a fundamental pillar of every functional health system. When a pregnant woman haemorrhages in labour, when a child is in respiratory distress, when a young man is involved in a road traffic accident, or when a patient collapses from a stroke or heart attack, the difference between life and death is measured in minutes. On 6th February, 2026, a 29-year-old engineer, Mr Charles Amissah, lost his life following a hit-and-run accident on the highway in Accra.
Reports indicate that the emergency medical technicians responded within minutes and administered care according to standard protocols. Yet, after being transported to three major hospitals in the capital, which are the Police Hospital, Greater Accra Hospital, and the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital, he was allegedly declined admission and emergency stabilisation due to what is known as the “no-bed syndrome”. My deepest condolences to the bereaved family.
The Minister for Health has constituted a committee, which is chaired by himself, to look into the circumstances surrounding his death and then make appropriate recommendations. While we commend the efforts of the Government and agencies such as the National Ambulance Service (NAS), the reality on the ground reveals significant gaps that demand immediate policy attention.
Mr Speaker, Ghana continues to face inadequate ambulance coverage. Many districts still lack reliable ambulance services. Response times, especially in rural constituencies like mine in Nanton, remain unacceptably long. We also face the issue of poorly equipped emergency units. Several district hospitals and health centres lack basic resource station equipment, defibrillators, ventilators, oxygen supply systems and trauma care logistics. Human resource constraints are another.
We have an insufficient number of trained emergency physicians, paramedics and other critical care nurses. In many facilities, emergency units are managed by overstretched general staff without specialised training. Also, we have weak referral systems. Delays in referrals, with a lack of communication between facilities and the absence of a coordinated trauma network, contribute significantly to preventable deaths. Then the issue of financial barriers. Despite the mandate of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), many emergency interventions require out-ofpocket payment before care is administered, undermining the very principle that emergency care should never be denied.
Mr Speaker, road traffic accidents, obstetric emergencies, cardiovascular diseases and acute infections continue to claim thousands of lives annually. According to the global health standards, effective emergency systems can prevent up to 50 per cent of deaths from trauma and acute medical conditions. We must therefore act decisively. I
respectfully propose the following: the establishment of a National Emergency Care Policy Framework with clear funding lines; a dedicated budgetary allocation for emergency infrastructure in all regional and district hospitals; expansion and modernisation of the NAS fleet with equitable rural distribution; training and certification programmes in emergency medicine and trauma care; enforcement of laws prohibiting refusal of emergency care based on inability to pay; development of a centralised emergency call and dispatch coordination system nationwide; and lastly, we must also include the training of Basic Life Support (BLS) in the curriculum of junior and senior high school students.
Mr Speaker, emergency care is the frontline of universal health coverage. If we are committed to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) and improving health outcomes for our citizens, then strengthening emergency care must be treated as a national priority. As a medical practitioner, I have witnessed first-hand the heartbreak of preventable deaths due to delays and system failures. As representatives of the people, I believe we have the power and the responsibility to change this narrative. Let us not wait for the next tragedy to act.
Let us invest today in systems that save lives tomorrow. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity.
Hon John Darko
Suame
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to comment on the Statement made by my Brother. I did not know he is a medical doctor.
Thank you, my Brother, for this very insightful Statement. I am looking at the last line of his Statement in which he implores us, as the people’s representative, not to wait for the next tragedy before we act. And so, I ask, 40 days since this tragic incident that happened to Mr Charles Amissah, what has happened? My Colleague mentioned that the Minister for Health has set up a committee to be chaired by the Minister himself and 40 days after the unfortunate demise of our compatriots, there is no report. That is why I believe that his Statement is very important. Let us not wait for the next tragedy to act. This is a country where we celebrate a lot of things.
For instance, Mr Speaker, our President and the current Administration have celebrated the fact that Ghanaian physicians are being sent away to the Caribbeans. My Brother, the doctor, says one of the reasons people are dying from lack of emergency care is the constraints in human resource. We do not have doctors, we do not have enough nurses, we do not have enough physicians to take care of Ghanaians. Yet we celebrate the fact that we are shipping Ghanaians out of this country. We are shipping nurses, we are shipping doctors, we are shipping physicians out of this country to go to the Caribbeans to take care of people. We celebrate that, when Ghanaians are dying from this absence of physicians. This is what we celebrate as a people. So, the Statement from my Brother is very important. Mr Speaker, may Hon Dafeamekpor refrain from interjecting my comment.
Mr Speaker, this is a country where we have trained so many nurses who are looking for employment. The Minister for Finance is not giving financial clarity for those people to be employed. It is the reason why people are dying from this problem, emergency care deficit. We do not have the human resources. Doctors complete training and they are not posted. When you are sick or when you get involved in an accident and you go to the hospital, you are looking for a physician to help you. We are not posting them. And we are here issuing a Statement. The Statement by my Brother is timely. But this Statement should go to the present Government, employ the people who are seeking for jobs. Thank you, Mr Speaker, I am guided.
Mr Speaker, one of the things my Brother stated is that we have inadequate ambulance coverage. The previous administration acquired 307 ambulances. We are told that 127 of them are in a state of disrepair. They are not working. How do we treat emergency care when our ambulances are destroyed and we are not fixing them? That is a problem. So, the Statement by my Colleague is timely, but it should go to the Government to fix our ambulances for us. Because when people are involved in an accident, they want to call the ambulance service.
Mr Speaker, the problem really is that we do not even know the number to call when we are involved in any emergency situation. Mr Speaker, you can ask Members of this House. My Brother, the Hon Majority Chief Whip, if he is involved in an accident right now, which number is he going to call? We need to educate ourselves, and because he does not know, he cannot speak to his people. We need to speak. We need to train the people. So, 112 should be a number that should be made known to the people of Ghana so that when they have an emergency, they can should call.
Mr Speaker, on that note, I want to thank my Brother, the maker of the Statement, for this insightful Statement. I hope that his recommendations are implemented by the Government to save the people of Ghana from avoidable death. Mr Speaker, I thank you.
Hon Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings
Korle Klottey
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to comment on the Statement made by the Hon Member on the emergency care deficit in Ghana.
Mr Speaker, emergency care is a specialist area, and the deficit is one that would have to be addressed through policy and definitely in terms of a quota system, where there is a proper assessment of what the deficit is in order to encourage more, I suppose, medical students to veer into that direction. Having said so, Mr Speaker, I would like to also add my voice to the need for basic life support training for not just the students in secondary school, but all first responders, including the police officers and other security service personnel. And of course, importantly, members of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), especially drivers and their “mates”, as a very important part because when these accidents happen, they usually tend to be the ones who are first on the scene. The first hour following any kind of trauma is critical, and the kind of processes that are followed are important towards the preservation and quality of life thereafter.
Mr Speaker, I think that in addition to that, the training of our paramedics in advanced cardiac and trauma life support are key. So that in the process of transporting patients from the site of an incident to whichever health facility is catered for enroute, because that is also essential in terms of the saving of lives. Mr Speaker, I would like to use the opportunity to encourage the public that there are certain things to look out for when you come into a situation of an accident of this sort, where there are no responders around. There is what we call the ABCs; the airway, breathing and circulation. That has to do with whether the patient is first of all conscious, very importantly, whether the area that you are approaching is safe to approach, and also, to assess whether the person is alert.
In doing so, one should also take cognisance of the fact that there could be an injury to the spine, and to be very careful that in trying to transport the person from the site of injury to a safer position, you are not actually exacerbating the injury. Sometimes you witness when people are being rescued from a vehicle or some site of an accident, the way they are even carried, more than likely results in certain injuries being made worse. So, a sensitisation of the public on a basic appreciation of what a person looks like and what to look out for in the event of an accident is key.
I think that given the fact that Parliament has paramedics posted here, it might be worthwhile for Members of Parliament to perhaps be given an opportunity to understand what basic life support is, so that even among us, we can also serve as first responders in the event of anything. Luckily, we have some of our staff always seated in the Chamber. And they are also positioned in the gymnasium for the Members of Parliament who work out, which is very few. I would like to take the opportunity to urge Members to take their exercise very seriously, to make sure that their blood pressure and sugar levels are being checked, given the level of stress that Members are exposed to.
And perhaps, to appeal to the Rt Hon Speaker to look at the extended hours of Sitting in the House deep into the night. It is not in the interest of the health of, not just Members of Parliament, but of all members of staff, not only from the point of view of nutrition and eating late and its impact on our metabolism, but also, on the safety and security of staff who have to leave the premises at a very late hour to get home, in which case some may even be exposed to the risk of accidents, which puts them back into the cycle of this deficit of healthcare in terms of trauma life support.
Mr Speaker, I think that as a House, we need to really look at this. We have seen in the last perhaps four years alone, occasions where Members and visitors who have been in the Chamber have either lost consciousness or had need to be seen to quite urgently. And at times, you witness the lack of experience in how people rush in on the person in need of emergency medical attention.
So certainly, the issue of the basic life support cannot be overemphasised. All persons as much as possible should be educated on basic life support, or at the very least, first aid and what to do and what not to do in order to preserve and protect life while we wait for patients to be transported from the—
Hon Jerry Ahmed Shaib
Weija-Gbawe
Mr Speaker, emergency care is not a luxury. It is actually the frontline defence against death. Where you have over 54 million people who die anyhow anyway just because they did not get emergency care is something one has to be worried about. We are aware that emergency care — I am talking about a global figure not Ghana. This indication is a reason for us to consider emergency care as a very important factor or step in health provision.
Emergency care is in three forms: the pre-hospital care, the infacility emergency medicine, and post emergency or critical care. When attention is paid to emergency care, the very basic things that hitherto would have caused problems, can be prevented. I think that one of the problems we have is actually education on how to deal with some of the situations that arise. For instance, in recent times I was giving out fuel coupons to motor riders and taxi drivers. I got burnt by the exhaust of a motor rider and just there, the kind of medical care and attention I had varied.
In fact, everybody became a doctor. Some said I should use salt water, some said warm water and others said I should use vaseline. Mr Speaker, what it means is that even for us, we do not have the basics apart from the structures which most of them are unavailable.
Mr Speaker, my Colleague here made reference to the issue of ambulances. Most MPs will tell you that their ambulances are dysfunctional. They have been decommissioned. They are not working. Members of Parliament have now become the ones to fix the ambulances and you ask yourself if there are no budgetary allocations to service ambulances and to get them in good and proper condition so that whenever there are situations of emergency, those ambulances could be used.
Mr Speaker, in Ghana, emergency care spans from the National Ambulance Service, hospital accident and emergency units, Police and Fire Services first post response protocols and community level health facilities, all of which are operating under the conditions of under resourced. It has become chronic and there is structural neglect. There is also another aspect of the workforce—I have information that since 2021, a lot of nurses that qualified to start working in facilities especially government facilities are unable to work. This is because first of all, maybe there is unavailability of those facilities for them to even be employed; second, they do not get the financial clearance. I do not do politics when I am doing these things.
If it is 2021 and they did not get the financial clearance, we are in 2026 so what are we waiting for? We need them to get jobs. Let them have access. Let them not become people who may have acquired the necessary knowledge and then become rusty because they may not be training and not getting– unlike lawyers who may perhaps be getting a chamber to operate from, they are just sitting in their homes and not doing anything. We need all of these people employed. When they are employed, it will give recourse to emergency care. They will be doing something. They will be working and this is something that when we are able to do, will save a lot of lives. Mr Speaker, another thing is also to rehabilitate —
Hon Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwami Dafeamekpor
South Dayi
Mr Speaker, let me thank the Hon Abdul-Khaliq for bringing this very important matter once more. It appears to be a Statement that finds space on this floor every year.
Mr Speaker, between Somanya and Hohoe, a distance of 168 km, there is no accident centre. There is no accident centre on that stretch of the eastern corridor. And indeed, there is no hospital properly socalled situated on that stretch apart from the Peki Government Hospital. So the Peki Government Hospital is inundated with emergency cases. Apart from road crashes that lead to such emergency cases, we also have emergency cases that are referred from other health centres that serve as the catchment area and feed on the hospital. So, using my area alone, it is such an important aspect of our health care.
Mr speaker, there is no accident centre also on the stretch between the Sogakope Hospital and your capital, Akatsi, so if there is a road crash, depending on the distance, they are either rushed to your place or they come to Sogakope. And we know what happens when you are transporting injured accident victims in a certain way and in a rush. So, this is such a major matter that this House should be concerned with.
Mr Speaker, there are major construction works happening on our very major arterial roads. I am happy the Leader has come. Maybe we should be asking that in addition to delivering these major roads, it should be consequential that we build well-resourced accident centres. It does not take much to do these things these days. There are even technologies available that are nicely done and become a first port of call to saving lives.
Mr speaker, two, as for the ambulance politics, we can do it but I do not want to do it this afternoon. We need to find out what is happening to the service agreement that was consequential to delivering the ambulances because the vehicles ought to be serviced regularly. It is part of the agreement. I know that there is an existing agreement as part of the entire ambulance supply issue. If that is not happening, then we must not be relying on ambulance alone in responding to our emergency situations. Can we look at delivering two helicopters, for instance, air ambulance as is done in other countries?
Mr Speaker, we get the opportunity to travel and we benchmark. I like to reference Tanzania because they are doing things very well. Between Zanzibar and Tanzania, it is one hour by sea, that is, water taxi. When you are in a water bus, it is like two hours. Now by air, it is 25 minutes if you are in a helicopter or in an ambulance, They use the air, they call it an air ambulance, to ferry patients onto the mainland in Dar es Salaam for medical response to emergency situations. It is a well-run system.
We need to begin to think along those lines that we need two helicopters as an air ambulance on standby, so that, depending on what is happening — because response time, Mr Speaker, is also critical. If the response time is good, a lot of lives will be saved. But the response time also depends on logistical availability. So, if we are able to have the logistics to be able to respond timeously, we lift victims when they are injured quickly to centres to be attended to. So I do not know whether, Mr Speaker, we may pray you to refer this to the Committee on Health, to come back, to consider this important Statement and see how, as Parliament, we can give some directives to enhance our—
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