The Chief Executive Officer of the National Ambulance Service (NAS), Dr. George Kojo Owusu, has outlined the remarkable evolution of Ghana’s emergency medical system from a small pilot project into a fully integrated national operation, delivering more than a million emergency responses since its inception.
Speaking at the Emergency Medicine Society of Ghana (EMSOG) 2nd National Emergency Medicine Conference held at KNUST on Friday, November 28, Dr. Owusu traced the origins of NAS to the tragic May 9, 2001 Accra Sports Stadium disaster, which exposed the country’s lack of organised pre-hospital emergency response.
He said the government’s decision to establish NAS in 2004 marked the beginning of systematic emergency medical care in Ghana.
The pilot phase began with only seven ambulance stations across three regions and two dispatch centres in Accra and Kumasi. Today, NAS operates 319 stations, covering all 261 districts and 275 constituencies, with a fleet of 322 ambulances.
Dr. Owusu noted that the Service has handled over 1,000,000 calls and attended to more than 200,000 emergency cases, travelling an average of 350,000 kilometres monthly to save lives nationwide.
He emphasised the growth in human resource capacity, which started with 57 personnel drawn from the Ghana National Fire Service.
This has expanded into a structured EMT training pipeline supported by the Paramedic & Emergency Care Training School (PECTS) located on a 20-acre campus at Nkenkaasu.
NAS has also enhanced its technological capacity through a decentralised digital dispatch system operating in all 16 regions and six additional strategic centres. The system includes the Prehospital-care Information Management System (PIMS), which integrates NAS with major public and private hospitals for seamless referrals.
Dr. Owusu commended strategic partnerships with organisations including NADMO, Ghana Police Service, Ghana Armed Forces Medical Services, MOH, GHS, CRS, KNUST, UCC, EMSOG, and several international partners such as the University of Florida, University of Kansas Medical Centre, JICA and KOICA.
He stressed that the Service’s evolution demonstrates Ghana’s commitment to strengthening emergency care through local innovation with global impact, in line with the conference theme.
