MOTOR HEARSE NOT AMBULANCE (PAGE 29)

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi

The National Ambulance Service has called on providers of motor hearse services to desist from branding their vehicles as ambulances.
It said ambulance was supposed to be a life saver and not for carrying corpses.
The service, therefore, reminded residents in the twin-city of Sekondi/Takoradi that there was a vast distinction between ambulance service and motor hearse.
It also said it was wrong for motor hearses to be driven around town with the inscription “ambulance” when in actual fact such vehicles were used for carrying corpses.
In their familiarisation tour of the offices of the Western Regional office of the Daily Graphic, Mr Joseph Kwaku Odonkor of the ambulance service said proper ambulance vehicles were specially designed with trained staff to ensure that the condition of accident victims, for instance, was not worsened in an attempt to save them.
He said one of the best things that the public could do to accident victims was to call the emergency services made up of the police, fire service and the ambulance services.
“The Fire Service and the Ambulance Service move together to rescue disaster victims.
Today’s ambulance is well equipped and efficiently organised to serve as a mobile pre-hospital emergency department and a communication unit.”
Mr Odonkor said the service was established in 2004 as an agency of the Ministry of Health.
He said there were two different kinds of emergencies — the planned and the unplanned.
At present, he said, they were operating 24 hours free of charge to the public in the metropolis with emergency medical technicians to manage patient casualties and they could be reached on telephone numbers 193 and 031-23225.
He said after various visits to corporate institutions, they would be moving to schools and churches to educate them on the operations of the service.
When the Daily Graphic went to sample the views of members of the public it came to light that majority of the people were not aware of the differences between the ambulance service and motor hearse.