The Member of Parliament for the Abuakwa South Constituency, Dr. Kingsley Agyemang, has supported advocacy for public education on pre-hospital emergency care.
He has also called for enhanced and well-coordinated efforts to educate the public on handling emergency health issues.
According to him, it was important that the public was educated on how to render immediate help, as some health issues that result in fatalities could be linked to the poor handling of the victims.
The Abuakwa South Member of Parliament, Dr. Kingsley Agyemang, was speaking on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday, January 29, 2025.
He was making comments on a statement that called for public education on pre-hospital emergency care.
In his comments, the Abuakwa South legislator underscored that the nation had been bedevilled with public health issues for a very long time.
“You will realise that most of the cases that result in fatalities are as a result of our ill-handling of some of these issues.
“We are all at risk, like we usually put it. It is well dated in literature. You will realise that pre-hospital or access to hospitals for some of these things is very lacking,” he said.
He continued that, “We need an enhanced, well-coordinated public education on the performance of some of these basic health provisions.”
The MP indicated that the previous government of the New Patriotic Party, in tackling basic health issues, began the process of procuring an ambulance for every constituency.
“This was to increase access to healthcare. Because before the NPP came to power, ambulance administration was not something that was quite popular,” he opined.
Stressing that nobody was immune from health crises, he urged the incoming minister for health to focus on pre-emergency issues, as it is one of the key strategies to strengthening the health system.
He recalled what occurred to the ADC to former President Akufo-Addo at his last State of the Nation Address in Parliament about two weeks ago and made the point that the way Parliament handled the situation testified that many lacked knowledge on what to do in those situations.
He associated himself with the maker of the statement that Ghana needed well-coordinated and comprehensive efforts at educating the public on how to handle some of those emergencies.
SHARED-ROLE
Concluding his statement, the MP for Lambuisie, Prof. Titus Kofi Beyuo, said that pre-hospital emergency care was a shared responsibility.
He called for the legal framework to be strengthened, the ambulance service to be resourced, and the public to be educated on pre-hospital emergency care to save lives.
Professing solutions, he said the government must provide funds for the national ambulance service.
He had earlier informed the house of the statistics of the number of patients handled by the ambulance service in 2023.
“Mr. Speaker, the government needs to increase funding to the national ambulance service to procure additional ambulances and equipment to meet demand,” he asserted and called for recruitment of paramedics and extension of training, “particularly in deprived areas.”
He called on the nation to “act decisively” to make pre-hospital care a priority in Ghana. Other members of the house took turns to comment on the statement in support of it.
Yesterday, Parliament dedicated space for the first-time MPs to have the opportunity to make statements on the floor and comment.
The opportunity was seized by the backbenchers, many of whom managed to catch the Speaker’s eye to comment on statements made by their colleague first-timers.
