The Emergency Medical Technicians Association of Ghana (EMTAG) has requested that the police provide escort for ambulances carrying patients in certain scenarios, including clashes.
As a result, the group has raised worry about the constant attacks on its members while doing their tasks.
Assaults, manhandling, and even armed robbery attacks when ambulances were fired at were all described as incidents that association members had to deal with while performing their responsibilities.
Ambulances are equipped with emergency medical technicians who provide out-of-hospital care to sick, wounded, and severely ill patients.
This might include car accidents, household or industrial mishaps, as well as medical coverage for large crowds.
President of EMTAG, Michael Dimongso Gaani, stated there had been 13 separate documented incidences of assaults on their members from 2012 to 2021, with 11 of the attacks being robbery, one a mob action, and the last being a hostage crisis involving their member in a private property.
He explained that the association had remained silent throughout these attacks, but that the most recent incident involving emergency medical technologists (EMTs) from the Zebilla District Ambulance office crew, who were attacked while transporting a patient from the Presbyterian Hospital in Bawku, was the most recent incident.
Shooting at Bawku
Mr Gaani said that an unknown shooter fired multiple rounds at the ambulance on May 11, 2022, and that when the medic driver managed to halt, a group of individuals pounced on the EMTs who sought to flee for their life and beat them viciously.
"According to the EMTs, the folks threatened to murder them since they were always saving the victims when they were shot." We are not interested in tribal conflicts as EMTs. We were just contacted to carry a victim of a car accident, but when the team got at the facility, they discovered the victim had been shot. As a result, we'd want to urge to health-care establishments to be more equitable.
"The constant attacks have put our members' lives in grave danger. This has left our members and their families terrified and despondent while they are on duty. What may be the intentions of these attacks on our members? That is the unsolved question that all EMTs have. In an ambulance, what are these armed robbers hunting for? It's absurd to believe that someone would purposefully attack an emergency vehicle, much alone an ambulance, that is responding to a patient," he added.
He also urged for an inquiry into the attacks so that the culprits might be brought to justice.