In the quest to end needless death and establish a strong ambulance service to serve the university and beyond within the Central Region, the University Health Services, UCC in partnership with the National Ambulance Service has commissioned an ambulance station for the University hospital.
This makes UCC hospital the first Education institutional health facility in Ghana to establish an ambulance station.
The Directorate of the University Health Services (DUHS) began as a Clinic in 1963, attached to the Adehye hall of the university to cater for the health needs of students, staff, and their dependents. It is now one of the Directorate of the University of Cape Coast and consists of the University Health Services (UHS) and the Environmental Health Services (EHS).
The hospital is a 70-bed capacity facility with a catchment population of 37,322, excluding students and workers population.
It is a designated sub-metro of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Health Directorate with five functional Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHIPS) Zones located at Akotokyir, Amamoma, Abakam, Kwaprow, and Ola catchment areas.
Speaking at the commissioning ceremony, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ambulance Service, Prof. Ahmed Nuhu Zackaria said this initiative will help speed up the emergency response system to curb needless death.
“…it saddens my heart that some deaths are obviously avoidable…the National Ambulance Service is going to partner with the University of Cape Coast and we are going to wage a war against needless death and death due to short illnesses.” He continued.
He however charged the university management to work to train its students in basic life support which will he believes is necessary in curbing needless death.
To that end, he said his office will draw a program to ensure every staff gets trained on basic life support.
He added saying “every student in the university will need a basic life support certificate and if we do that, I think the University of Cape Coast will be the first in the world to have such a system in place.”
Vice Chancellor of UCC, Professor Johnson Nyarko Boampong, on his part intimated that the establishment of the ambulance station will assist the hospital to improve its quality healthcare delivery to reduce issues with referral cases.
The University of Cape Coast hospital currently refers all complicated cases to Cape Coast Teaching Hospital. Cases that will need specialist care that is not available at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital are referred to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.
The vice Chancellor said the hospital hopes to expand its range of services by providing an enabling environment to attract and maintain specialists in many other fields of healthcare.
“When this is done the facility will be upgraded into a secondary healthcare facility. The provision of quality healthcare is teamwork and relies strongly on the cooperation between the health workers and the entire community.” He added.
Also sharing her thoughts and excitement at the commissioning ceremony, Directorate of University Health Services, UCC, Dr. Evans Ekanem said the ambulance has come in timely as most referral cases from the hospital require the availability of an ambulance.
He, therefore, expressed excitement at the partnership between the University Hospital and the national ambulance service saying it is his prayer that this partnership will result in the saving of many more lives.
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Source: Eric Sekyi/ATLFMNEWS
