For months, medical emergencies in Wassa Amenfi East in the Western Region ended the same way: a frantic search for a taxi. Pregnant women in labour, miners overcome by fumes, children in sudden crisis were loaded into commercial vehicles and sent toward Kumasi, hours away on roads that offered no guarantees. Some did not survive the journey.
That gap has now been addressed. The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Wassa Amenfi East, Raymond Nana Ebbah, has secured a brand-new ambulance for the municipality and handed it over to the National Ambulance Service (NAS) department in Wassa Akropong, the municipal capital.
The vehicle is a Toyota Hiace, registration number GW-6629-26, equipped with a mobile stretcher, oxygen cylinder, patient monitor, vital signs equipment, vacuum splints, and a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) machine. It also carries incubation sets, a suction device, a ventilator, paramedic jump bags, and functioning beacon lights, siren, and interior working lights.
The MCE secured the donation through DJ Group of Companies, whose General Manager, Bernard Manu Armah, agreed to the request and delivered the vehicle within two days. Ebbah described the speed of the response as remarkable and acknowledged Armah’s commitment to community welfare. Armah, in turn, described the donation as part of his company’s corporate social responsibility and urged authorities to maintain the vehicle properly.
Speaking at the handover ceremony in Wassa Akropong, Ebbah explained that the municipality’s only existing ambulance had been grounded despite repeated servicing attempts. With no functional alternative, patients including pregnant women were forced to make emergency trips to Kumasi by commercial taxi. He confirmed that some had died in transit.
He stressed that a working ambulance dramatically changes outcomes for patients in distress. A functional emergency vehicle, he noted, provides crucial first aid during transport, contributing to a roughly 70 percent success rate in emergency treatment compared to the delays and lack of medical attention that define commercial transport.
The Omanhene of the Wasa Amenfi Traditional Area, Tetrete Okuamoah Sekyim II, the Wasa Amenfi Queen Mother Nana Ameyaa, divisional chiefs, and various heads of department attended the handover ceremony.
The Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the NAS, Dr Patrick Inkoom-Colbelson, thanked both the MCE and the donor for the intervention. He acknowledged that attending to emergencies had previously been deeply difficult due to the absence of a vehicle, and assured those present that the new ambulance would be maintained and used strictly for its intended purpose. He also used the occasion to caution the public against prank calls to emergency lines, warning that frivolous calls divert resources from people with genuine medical needs.
