For years, the people of Wassa Amenfi East have played a deadly game of chance with time.
When a pregnant woman goes into labour in the night, or a child stopped breathing, or a miner collapsed from a toxic fume, the calculation was always the same: find a taxi, pray for no traffic, and race 200 kilometers to Kumasi. Too often, they lost the bet.
But last week, the sound of a siren cut through that despair.
It started with a frustrated phone call from the Municipal Chief Executive, Raymond Nana Ebbah. Watching the municipality’s only ambulance sit dead in the garage “grounded after several servicing attempts” he decided he could not preside over another funeral caused by a lack of transport.
“The situation was disheartening,” Ebbah admitted to a crowd gathered at the handing-over ceremony in Wassa Akropong. “We had patients, including pregnant women, forced to travel to Kumasi by taxi. Some did not make it. They died in the middle of the road.”
Instead of filing another memo into a black hole, the MCE picked up the phone and leaned on his personal lobbying skills. He reached out to the private sector specifically Mr. Bernard Manu Armah, General Manager of DJ Group of Companies.
The response was almost miraculous. Just two days after the request, a brand-new Toyota Hiace ambulance (registration GW-6629-26) arrived.
This is not your typical patient transport. The gleaming white vehicle is a mobile emergency room.
Inside, paramedics will now find a stretcher, oxygen cylinders, a patient monitor, vital signs equipment, vacuum splints, and a CPR machine.
There are incubation sets for newborns, a suction device, a ventilator, paramedic jump bags, and a full suite of lights beacon, siren, and interior working lights.
For a municipality with vast remote areas, this is the difference between life and death.
“An ambulance gives a 70% success rate in emergency medical treatment because of the first aid provided on the way,” Ebbah explained. “We didn’t have that. Now we do.”
The ceremony was not just a political handover. The Omanhene of Wasa Amenfi Traditional Area, Tetrete Okuamoah Sekyim II, was present, alongside Queen Mother Nana Ameyaa and divisional chiefs.
In a touching moment, the MCE revealed that the vehicle bears his name not as a trophy, but as a promise.
“Having my name on this vehicle affirms my adherence to the chief’s counsel,” Ebbah said, thanking the Paramount Chief for his guidance. “This legacy is his doing as much as mine.”
While the mood was celebratory, the Acting Deputy CEO of the National Ambulance Service, Dr. Patrick Inkoom-Colbelson, struck a serious chord.
He thanked the MCE and DJ Group for their corporate social responsibility but turned to the crowd with a plea: Stop the prank calls.
“Frivolous calls hinder help for those in genuine need,” Dr. Inkoom-Colbelson warned. He urged residents to use emergency lines responsibly, noting that every hoax call diverts resources away from a mother in labor or a crash victim bleeding out.
For his part, the General Manager of DJ Group, Bernard Manu Armah, had only one request for the authorities: “Maintain it. Keep it running.”
As the engine of the new Toyota Hiace purred to life outside the municipal capital, the feeling in Wassa Akropong was not just relief it was dignity.
The days of flagging down taxis to Kumasi are not over yet. But for the first time in a long time, when a life hangs in the balance, Wassa Amenfi East has a fighting chance.
