Health Professionals Riding Motorbikes Without Helmet To Be Arrested

Dr Winfred Ofosu, the Upper East Regional Director of Health Services has called on the Ghana Police Service to arrest and prosecute any health professional in the Region who will be seen riding motorbike without wearing a crash helmet.

He said the initiative formed part of measures by the Regional Health Directorate to reduce the rate of fatal accidents among health professionals in the region.

He said the Region had lost strong and energetic young men and women through motorbike accidents because they were not were not wearing crash helmets.

'We are losing our staff. Just last week a staff was riding a motorbike without helmet, he had an accident and died. If he was wearing a crash helmet, he would have sustained some minor injuries and possibly stayed alive.'

Dr Ofosu who made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Bolgatanga, expressed concern about the situation, and said even though the Directorate had issued several cautions to all health institutions as a measure to check the act, professionals, especially nurses and midwives were still seen in uniform riding without crash helmets.

'We think that, it is better for the Police to arrest, caution or even prosecute them, than to allow them ride without helmets and die. It is quite painful that we are losing staff this way,' he added.

The Director noted that it was the responsibility of health professionals to encourage citizens to put on crash helmets while riding motorbikes to avoid head injury, and propagate the use of seat belts in cars, adding that, it was unfortunate they were the very people acting contrary to these live saving practices.

He emphasised that; 'we need to set good examples as professionals for the citizens to follow,' and added that the intervention of the Police would help curb the worrying situation, and further give meaning to the education they offered citizens on the need to use crash helmets to protect themselves from head injuries.

Dr Ofosu noted that the region lost four nurses from the Nabdam, Builsa South, Bawku West Districts and the Kassena-Nankana Municipality to motorbike accidents without crash helmets, and called for attitudinal change among staff, especially nurses.

Mr Joseph Akurugu, Transport Officer at the Health Directorate, used the opportunity in a separate interviews to call on the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), to institute measures to reduce the delay and bureaucracy that health professionals, especially Community Health Nurses who mostly use motorbikes, go through to acquire licenses.

He said the use of motorbikes among Community Nurses was part of the training curriculum, and appealed to officials of the DVLA to speed up the licensing process because about 80 percent of these professionals who use official and personal motorbikes for service delivery in the Region were riding without license and they were not too familiar with road signs as well.

As part of the measures to enforce the directives, the Health Directorate had directed all Security Guards posted to health facilities in the region to ensure that motorbike users who failed to wear crash helmets were not allowed entry into premises of health facilities.

The GNA observed that some public health facilities including the Regional Hospital, the Regional Health Directorate and some clinics, had erected sign posts with the inscription: 'No Helmet, No Parking' to compel health officials and other members of the public to the facilities use crash helmets.