Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Ambulance Service, Professor Ahmed Nuhu Zakariah, has discredited reports that emergency services  for the Tamale-Kintampo road disaster delayed.

He says the “twelve-hour delay” peddled about is untrue and not a reflection of the reality that obtained on the ground in last Wednesday’s accident.

“The 9-member crew of the Kintampo Ambulance Station were there to help in triaging“, and they helped to send victims to hospitals in Techiman and Sunyani, he said.

He explained that when there is an accident persons involved has to be categorized into four groups namely; red group, yellow group, green group, and the dead, and that the Kintampo Ambulance crew helped in this regard.

He says the crew got to the accident scene to stabilise the condition of survivors and then rushed them to the hospital in a situation he described as “scoop and run.”

Professor Zakariah remarked that it was not as though the Emergency Service was in a state of inertia, and that there was rapid response from his team in the inter-facility transfer.

He berated the manner some persons are attacking the response of the Emergency Service in the Kintampo accident.

He described such attacks as unfortunate and not contributing anything to the problem at hand. “When there is a disaster our attention goes to the disaster without looking at the systems”, he said.

Speaking on the Super Morning Show, Professor Zakaria said the Service has grown from a pilot project in 2004 to a full service in 2008, and now has a total of 161 ambulances and 1, 700 personnel.

He explained that there was "virtually no system and we are  putting this in place."

In his response to the resource challenges of the Service, Professor Zakaria said “I do agree that we need to resource the emergency services more but it will take the government a long time to do that.”