Prank calls by some members of the public to the National Ambulance Service (NAS) in the Volta Region, falsely reporting road accidents and domestic emergencies, are frustrating operations of the service.

The Volta Regional Administrative Manager of NAS, Mr Bright K. Manu disclosed this to the Ghanaian Times in an exclusive interview in Ho yesterday.

“In the last quarter of this year alone, we received at least 20 of such calls, and this is in spite of the vigorous public education by NAS against the trend,” he told the Ghanaian Times.

Mr Manu who is also the Senior Advance Medical Technician in-charge of the region said that NAS crews promptly responded to the calls and sped to the reported accident scenes only to realise that no such incident took place on the roads.

In cases of reported domestic emergencies, he said the callers immediately turned off their phones or ignored follow-up calls from the NAS crew seeking clarification and direction to the spot.

The regional NAS Administrative Manager explained that the trend resulted in the waste of resources as fuel was consumed by the ambulances and time wasted on the trips to the reported accident scenes.

“Meanwhile, we cannot ignore any call reporting emergencies,” he told the Ghanaian Times.

According to Mr Manu, NAS had compiled the numbers which made the hoax calls with the intension of handing them over to the police for the appropriate action to be taken.

“We are also planning to collaborate with the National Commission for Civic Education in our public education against the trend,” he stated.

Mr Manu said that in the first half of this year, NAS responded to 1007 emergency cases, which included road traffic accidents, medical, domestic and maternal cases.

Touching on other challenges facing the service, Mr Manu said that the regional NAS headquarters needed 40 more shift drivers to ensure uninterrupted operations around the clock as well as bigger and permanent premises to operate from.

For now, he said that illegal and rugged speed ramps erected on the roads in some communities were posing danger to ambulances responding to emergencies and negatively affecting their response time.