The National Ambulance Service has revealed that it receives up to 10,000 prank calls every day.
Unscrupulous people will just place calls to them just for the fun of it, says Foster Ansong Bridjan, the Director of Operations at the Ghana National Ambulance Service, said this on Accra-based 3 FM.
“It has become one major challenge that we are facing because we get about 33,000 prank calls monthly and only 170 were normal calls. There are a lot of them”…On daily basis, we can get more than 10,000 prank calls if you get to the national call centre,” he lamented.
According to him, this has meant that critically needed ambulances are on fool’s errands all the time, a situation that means that if someone who is genuinely ill needs an ambulance, he is likely to stay in a queue.
According to Mr. Ansong Bridjian, it is not only the ambulance service which has been receiving these prank calls, but, “National Security, NADMO and others, and putting all together, we have over 10,000 prank calls every day. When somebody with an emergency calls, it means they have to queue” he complained.
He said the issue has been reported to National Security for action. “We have engaged national security because their system is also part of the national system. A lot of adverts have been done but we keep getting these challenges,” he said.