President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Professor Ernest Yorke, has called for the passage of an Emergency Care Act to improve referrals and establish minimum standards for emergency facilities across Ghana. He made the appeal during the Association’s 68th Annual General Conference, where he outlined gaps affecting patients and health professionals.
Yorke argued that emergency care must operate as a coordinated system, linking hospitals, ambulance teams, personnel and reliable information. He maintained that legislation would protect patients’ access to urgent treatment, clarify responsibilities and support emergency funding.
“The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) calls for the promulgation of an Emergency Care Act as soon as possible.”
President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Professor Ernest Yorke
Yorke stressed that facilities must provide care within their capabilities and ensure patients receive an organised next step when they need further treatment. He called for direct communication between referring and receiving teams, including the patient’s condition, treatment and further needs.
He criticised arrangements that leave relatives responsible for carrying medical notes between hospitals. In his view, referral coordination must be handled by health professionals and institutions rather than patients’ relatives.
Hospital Delays and Workforce Shortages
The GMA president also called for dependable, regularly updated information on emergency services. Such a system must show whether a facility has the staff, equipment and expertise to manage a particular case, with designated officers keeping the information current.
Yorke urged hospital leaders to examine delays that keep patients in emergency departments when wards cannot receive them, partly because investigations, specialist reviews, discharges and onward referrals are delayed.
Some improvements require investment, while others need better leadership, communication and daily management.
He warned against relying on exhausted workers, persistent vacancies and individual goodwill. The scientific session highlighted critical shortages of emergency physicians, nurses and medical technicians relative to Ghana’s population.
“We need to intensify the training and deployment of these professionals, with supportive supervision and working conditions that allow health professionals to provide safe care.”
President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Professor Ernest Yorke
Yorke cautioned that emergency care should not be reduced to transporting patients from one location to another. He urged investment in facilities outside major centres so they can receive, stabilise and manage emergencies, reducing the need for patients to undertake long journeys before receiving help.
He called for referring facilities, ambulance teams and receiving hospitals to work from a shared plan, with regular exercises for road crashes, fires and mass-casualty incidents. Clear responsibilities are essential when several people require urgent attention at once.
GMA Calls for Accountability and Better Standards
He called for transparent performance data on waiting times, failed referrals, communication breakdowns and treatment delays.
Institutions, he urged, must act on the findings, protect open reporting and hold responsible parties accountable nationwide. The information should identify where breakdowns occur, who must respond and whether corrective measures have improved patient outcomes across facilities. Regular review would help leaders identify recurring failures and prevent avoidable delays over time.
Families deserve respectful explanations, particularly when care has been delayed or a patient dies. Doctors must communicate, document carefully, respond to referrals and treat distressed patients and relatives with compassion. He urged practitioners not to treat patients unfairly simply because their facilities cannot provide a requested service.
Facilities unable to provide a service must still communicate empathetically. Health workers must provide whatever minimal care they can before sending patients elsewhere.
The Act would protect emergency access, improve referrals, provide real-time information and set minimum readiness standards. It would define the staffing, equipment and services required at each level of care.
It would also guide budget allocations, establish reward and sanction mechanisms, and address geographical inequalities in emergency care.
Yorke Highlights Doctors’ Welfare Engagements
Yorke also addressed doctors’ welfare and conditions of service during the first year of the Association’s collective administration.
“The GMA stands ready to provide the technical support needed to make this a reality,”
President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Professor Ernest Yorke
These include the restoration of the car waiver, an upward adjustment of the non-basic salary allowance and the academic clinical consultant allowance.
He singled out the President for praise and expressed the Association’s sincerest appreciation. The remarks placed doctors’ working conditions alongside the wider demands for a dependable emergency system.
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