Taxis have become ‘alternative ambulances’ for referrals of critically ill patients at the Tain Government Hospital in the Brong Ahafo region due to lack of an ambulance.

The only ambulance of the hospital, Starr News gathered, had been out of use for a long time and is currently parked on stones at the compound.

Speaking in an interview with Starr News, the Administrator of the hospital Abdul Aziz Abubakar described the situation as dire.

“In fact, as for ambulance the least said the better,” he bemoaned, adding, “we have a full ambulance that’s sitting on blocks right now.”

He said despite the challenges they try to improvise when the need arises to refer a patient by using the pickup of the hospital health Directorate.

“So we depend on it [and] sometimes too we have to hire a taxi,” he said.

This debilitating disclosure comes at a time government is set to procure 275 new ambulances for the National Ambulance Service to augment the few ones in the country.

The whole of the country has only 165 ambulances serving over 27 million citizens. For some time now, the service has been complaining of lack of ambulances.

According to the CEO of the National Ambulance Service, Prof. Ahmed Nuhu Zakaria, the number is below the internationally accepted ratio which is 25,000 people to one ambulance.

The 275 ambulances will be distributed to the constituencies, thus one constituency one ambulance.

A source at the National Ambulance service told GBC Radio Ghana that the agreement process is far advanced and very soon the ambulances will be shipped into the country.