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It has emerged all the 307 ambulances brought into Ghana by President Akufo-Addo are equipped with portable ventilators which could help immensely in the fight against Covid-19 in the country.
On Tuesday, 28th January, 2019, the president commissioned and presented 307 new, state-of-the-art ambulances to the National Ambulance Service, in fulfillment of his 2016 campaign pledge.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the 307 ambulances are “fitted with advanced life support equipment and tracking devices, to be distributed to 275 constituencies, i.e. 1-Constituency-1-Ambulance, to be managed by the National Ambulance Service, and the remainder of thirty-two (32) ambulances to the headquarters of the Service.”
There have been cases of shortage of ventilators across the world which is having adverse effect in the fight against the coronavirus. Ventilators – mechanical breathing devices – are crucial in the fight to save patients whose lungs are assailed by the virus.
According to the World Health Organization, one in six COVID-19 patients becomes seriously ill and can develop breathing difficulties. In the United States, which has more confirmed cases than any other country in the world, the Society of Critical Care Medicine has projected that 960,000 coronavirus patients may need to be put on ventilators at one point or another during the pandemic.
But the US has only about 200,000 machines, by the organisation’s estimate, approximately half of which are older models that may not be ideal for the most critically ill patients.
However, in the case of Ghana, sources at the National Ambulance Service have assured that the country is “good to go by way of planning” when it comes to ventilators because the state-of-the-art ambulances are fitted with portable ones.
Dailymailgh.com’s checks also reveal that the ambulances are more or less like mini-Intensive Care Units (ICU) which could be resorted to in case the hospitals are overstretched.
Ghana currently has 200 ICUs and with the ambulances the country technically has over 520 ventilators to check the pandemic.
Source: Daily Mail GH
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