The Greater Accra Regional Office of the National Ambulance Service (NAS) has expressed concern over a surge in prank emergency calls, revealing that it receives approximately 5,000 false alerts each month.
The Greater Accra Regional Manager of the Service, Daniel Asare, said the situation is placing considerable strain on operations.
He explained that the volume of prank calls causes congestion at the dispatch centre and disrupts timely responses to genuine emergencies. Despite this, he emphasised that policy requires the Service to respond to every call.
“Prank calls normally happen when you raise a false alarm. There’s no emergency, but you are calling that, somebody is lying somewhere, so the ambulance service should come in. In a month, we can get about 5,000 prank calls at the dispatch centre,” he said.
Mr. Asare further noted that some individuals misuse the emergency line for non-critical or inappropriate requests.
“Some people will call and say, ‘Oh, I’ve eaten, and I’m tired, come and pick me to the hospital.’ Others even call to check whether we have reported for duty,” he stated.
He appealed to the public to refrain from abusing the emergency lines and to use the service responsibly.
“Anytime we get a credible platform like this, we want to advise the general public that they should only call when there is an emergency,” he added.
