The Church Funds Donation of Emergency Transportation Vehicles in Ghana

With funding from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and in partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), 20 Modified Motor Tricycle Ambulances (MMTAs) were handed over to the Ghana National Ambulance Service (NAS) and Ghana Health Services (GHS) in Tamale, in the Northern Region of Ghana, on 10 March, 2025.  The donation, made through the Holistic Opportunities for Positive Engagement in Maternal and Child Health (HOPE-MCH) project, impacts 10 Districts in the Upper East, Savannah, North East and the Northern Regions, benefiting over 250,000 individuals and improving services in 100 health facilities across the 4 targeted regions.

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The HOPE-MCH project is an initiative led by a coalition of government, NGOs, and international partners that collaborate to improve maternal and child health outcomes in Ghana by enhancing access to quality healthcare services as well as by improving those practices. In the remote and rural communities of northern Ghana, emergency transportation is virtually non-existent, and the lack of such services impacts delivering mothers and newborns disproportionately from the general public. The HOPE-MCH program’s goals include reducing maternal and child mortality rates and striving to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years.  The donation of emergency all-terrain vehicles will support those goals by providing transportation options heretofore unavailable.

In her opening remarks in the well-attended handover ceremony, the country representative of CRS, Madam Abena Amedormey, affirmed that this initiative directly addresses the delay in accessing critical health services. Referencing the new all-terrain ambulances, she noted that with this donation, they have taken a decisive step forward in their mission to save precious lives. She expressed her sincerest gratitude to the Church for their generous financial support for the project, and on behalf of the Church and CRS, she encouraged the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the National Ambulance Service (NAS) to maximize the potential of the ambulances to realize the project objective of enhancing maternal and child health in northern Ghana.

The CRS's program manager, Mr. Haliq Adam, who took the participants through the project timeline, stated that in the time since the contract was signed in September 2024, a support staff of health workers have been trained and deployed, most notably midwives to help in the rural communities.  Delighted with the improvements to the success rate so far, he affirmed that they are very optimistic that, with the provisions of the ambulances, health service delivery will improve dramatically in the benefiting communities.

Mr. Israel Otto, who represented the Church, explained that the Church's humanitarian work in West Africa commenced in large-scale fashion in the 1980s in response to the Ethiopian famine, when the leaders of the Church announced a worldwide fast to raise some 6 million US dollars to support victims. According to him, the Church has since scaled up its humanitarian interventions in Ghana, across Africa, and across the globe, especially in maternal and child health and for women and youth development. He expressed his gratitude to CRS and to Ghana Health Services (GHS) for collaborating with the Church, and he assured them of the Church's continued support. He appealed to the GHS and NAS to handle the MMTAs well to derive their maximum benefit.

The Nabdam District Director of GHS in the Upper East Region, Madam Maria Mahama, was delighted to add the HOPE-MCH project donation to the other numerous interventions going on in her region. She again underscored the fact that access to emergency transportation is a significant challenge in most rural communities and gratefully acknowledged that the MMTAs would be a godsend in bridging the gap in the timely delivery of critical healthcare and quality medical attention needed by women and children in the district.  She urged all District Directors to make good use of the MMTAs and to ensure their proper maintenance. She then thanked CRS, and especially the Church, for their support.

Describing the donation as an innovative and life-saving intervention, Dr. Foster Ansong-Bridjan, Director of Operations of the NAS, restated the overriding theme that providing access to emergency care has been an ongoing challenge in rural areas of Ghana because traditional ambulances struggle to cope with the poor road conditions and network. He commended CRS and The Church for their donation of the all-terrain ambulances, emphasizing that no life should be lost due to delays in transporting a person to a health facility. He admonished his people to handle the MMTAs according to the purpose for which they have been provided, and he expressed his hope that this collaboration will inspire additional partnerships in the future.

Tamale District President Doku, in his concluding remarks, appealed to the benefiting communities to  own the project and to handle the equipment well so as to be worthy of receiving additional support from the Church when the need arises.