A member of the Communication Team of the governing New Patriotic Party in the Upper East Region and Regional Coordinator of the Nation Builders Corps, Wunison Khan Jambeidu has called for the reclassification of road traffic crashes as public health threats.
According to him, such a move will compel the country to pump the needed resources into reducing the menace.
His comments trail the death of 20 people along the Buipe-Tamale Highway in the Savannah Region after two Yutong buses one from Garu to Kumasi and the other from Kumasi to Garu collided head-on with reports suggesting that one of the drivers was sleep- driving.
The incident has thrown Garu into a state of mourning and triggered a conversation on safety on Ghana’s highways.
In 2020 alone, 2,500 people died as a result of road crashes in Ghana. In the same year, over 70 people according to the National Road Safety Authority died in the Upper East Region.
There are still unaddressed health problems that pose several risks to the citizenry such as Malaria, cholera, HIV/AIDS, Covid-19 among others.
For the Regional NABCO Coordinator and Dean of Coordinators who was speaking Friday morning on Dreamz Fm, the reclassification of road crashes as a public health threat will help the country to develop a road map to reducing the carnage on the country’s roads.
“I think that we need to look at accidents on our roads as a public health problem so that we can pay close attention to some of the things that are being done. Because if you look at issues that we have classified in this country as public health problems and the resources that we pump in to be able to ensure that we deal with these health problems, I believe that all of us, it is high time we started appealing and pushing for government to begin to classify issues of road traffic accidents as public health problems and I believe that it will change the focus of the attention that we give to road traffic accidents”.
Mr. khan is of the conviction that road crashes in the country have become a full-blown health threat, considering the rate at which people are killed and maimed through crashes.
“If we look at these road accidents that have become very rampant as not just safety issues that we are supposed to comply with but a full-blown public health issue, we will be able to put all the necessary attention and resources to begin to curb these road accidents and I believe that even in the international community, we will begin to get some support in dealing with these road accidents and it will widen the scope of our approach” he noted.
