The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Shani Alhassan Shaibu has pleaded with the staff of the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) to treat patients who arrive in ambulances as emergency cases.

The Minister said patients who arrive in ambulances at the hospital must be given special attention and care to help save their lives.

“This vehicle [ambulance] is not a comfortable vehicle for people to be riding in, so, if you see somebody coming in in this vehicle, it means that person must be treated at a certain level,” the Minister appealed.

Alhaji Alhassan Shaibu appealed on Thursday when he handed over a brand-new ambulance and a water tanker to the management of TTH.

His appeal comes after complaints about the conduct of some of the staff of the facility who are accused of showing a lackluster attitude towards patients who are transferred to the hospital from other health facilities around the region.

The Minister said health service personnel needed to prioritize emergency cases over other personal activities while at work.

He also urged them to treat their patients as they would like to be treated.

“Lives have been entrusted into our hands; we should treat them like we’ll treat ourselves. When people come here, they should not be treated equally, in some instances.

“Because somebody comes here in an ambulance and is gasping for life then probably you’re playing or fidgeting with your smartphone and doing other things and when somebody enquires, you’ll say 'But you see that I’m doing something’. Not all things are equal, we should put this in our minds,” The Regional Minister stressed.

He appealed to management of the hospital to take up the issue and ensure such behaviours stop.

The vehicles were presented to the hospital by Alhaji Alhassan Shaibu on behalf of the Ministry of Health which secured them through the support of the government of Japan.

The Northern Regional Minister said the water tanker is in line with government’s efforts to addressing water shortages at the hospital while the ambulance was expected to augment existing ones at the facility.

The Board Chairman of the TTH, Dr Mahmoud Hamid Nassir-Deen who received the vehicles on behalf of the hospital promised that the vehicles would be used for their intended purposes.

He urged management of the hospital to install vehicle tracking devices in their fleet of vehicles to enable them monitor their movement.

According to him, installing the tracking devices in the vehicles would also help management to ensure the vehicles are used effectively for their intended purposes.