EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND FIRST AID POST LONG OVERDUE
THE National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has announced the beginning of the process of establishing 100 Emergency Response and First Aid Posts (ERFAP) at strategic locations along major highways in the country.
It said eight of such posts are already completed and fully equipped with medical items, VHF portable 2-way radio device, safety boots and bicycles.
According to the NRSC, the construction of the eight ERFAP will feed into the major hospitals on the major corridor of Accra-Kumasi, Accra-Aflao and Accra-Takoradi highways and would be funded by the World Bank under the Transport Sector Project (TSP).
They will be managed by the Ghana Red Cross Society with support from the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Saint John’s Ambulance and the Ghana National Fire Service on 24-hour basis.
The NRSC explained that the ERFAP project is aimed at minimising deaths during crashes while sustaining lives of victims through emergency response systems and in line with the framework of the National Road Safety Strategy -3 (2011-2020).
The Ghanaian Times welcomes the ERFAP although we are disappointed it was not implemented much earlier looking back at the harrowing road crashes and the painful loss of lives. We would have expected that this project would have been implemented long ago – to deal with emergency response issues.
That notwithstanding, we are of a firm belief that the project would be undertaken with all the seriousness it deserves so that in an event of an accident, at least first aid care could be provided for the victims.
As everybody is aware, accidents that have occurred in the past were mainly attributable to human error and unavailability of swift response from professionals to provide assistance, and have led to the needless deaths.
It is our hope that the efforts being put into the establishment of the first aid posts would yield the desired results.
We urge all stakeholders, motorists and passengers alike to support the initiative to help minimise deaths during crashes in the country.
We are aware that many other efforts have been made including public education, but many of the dos and don’ts have been ignored by motorists and passengers alike.
We therefore, advocate that the public should see road crashes as a very serious national crisis that must be tackled in a very drastic manner.
We are about to celebrate the Easter festivities and that is one of the occasions that many of us go back to our home towns to celebrate and unfortunately this festive occasion continues to record fatalities though road crashes.
We see the implementation of the ERFAP as a timely intervention in addition to what is already being done and we call for national support to make it successful.
