NGO donates ambulances for Lambussie and Karni health centres

Lambussie, UWR, April 20, GNA - The International Centre for Enterprise and Sustainable Development (ICED), a non-governmental organisation, on Sunday presented an ambulance each to the Lambussie and Karni Health Centres in the Lambussie/Karni District in the Upper West Region.

The Ford Fiesta ambulances valued at 16,000 Ghana Cedis would convey the sick, especially desperate pregnant women to the hospital for early medical attention.

Professor Emmanuel K. Boon, Chairman of ICED, who presented the ambulances at a forum of health workers at Lambussie, said the lack of ambulance services was a major factor for maternal and child deaths during delivery in the district.

"I witnessed the death of a pregnant woman who was carried on a bicycle to the hospital and she died on the way and that touched me a lot.

"These are development challenges that touched the NGO to purchase the ambulances for the two health centres to facilitate the movement of the sick to hospitals for early treatment", Professor Boon explained.

Professor Boon, who teaches Human Ecology and Environmental Management at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium, therefore urged the health authorities to use the ambulances to help reduce maternal and child death rates and achieve the Millennium Development Goal on improving maternal health.

He said many children in the region do not live to see their first birth day as equal numbers die before they reach five and that should be of concern to all.

Professor Boon, who is a negative of Lambussie, appealed to men to encourage their pregnant wives and sisters to take advantage of the ambulance services when they are in need.

He called for increased media to sensitise the people to patronise health facilities to reduce the number of mothers and children who die in the region.

"Maternal injuries and deaths are not only medical but are also issues of justice, the right to health and life", Prof. Boon explained.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little", he added.

Mr. Clement B. Benin, Lambussie/Karni District Chief Executive, who received the keys to the ambulances, said the ambulances had come at a time when maternal death rate in the region was on the ascendancy.

He said one of the key factors identified for the misfortune had been the lack of ambulance services in most rural communities to help transport the sick to health centres for treatment.

The provision of the ambulances was therefore not only meant to help reduce maternal and other deaths in the communities but it was also to assist the government to deliver on its agenda of providing accessible and affordable health services to the people.

Mr. Benin said the ICED interventions in the district had helped to transform lives and improved educational standards in the area.

The district assembly has therefore identified ICED as a strong and reliable partner and would join forces with it to fast track the development of the district.

Madam Francisca Bagni, District Health Director, thanked the NGO and Professor Boon for the donation and assured that they would be used to improve maternal health in the district.

GNA