Well, let me begin by saying that i am not a security expert; i am merely expressing my views as a Ghanaian who has observed the increasing rate at which health workers are attacked while carrying out their duties. From my perspective, these incidents are deeply concerning and deserve urgent attention to ensure the safety and protection of health professionals who serve the public under often challenging circumstances.
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Dorcas Inaka Abakli-Zakli : Senior Procurement Manager ,Ghana College of Pharmacists
Healthcare
facilities are meant to be places of healing, care, and trust. Yet across
Ghana, hospitals increasingly contend with workplace violence, unauthorised
access, theft of medicines and equipment, and emergency threats that disrupt
the very environment meant to preserve life. Health workers have come under
attack from patients and their relatives, while troubling reports of missing
infants and dead bodies raise urgent questions about who is truly safeguarding
our health institutions. The life of every health worker and every patient
in-patient, out-patient, or deceased matters, and protecting that life requires
more than goodwill. It requires a deliberate, professional security
architecture.
Hospital security
in Ghana remains one of the most underrated and under-resourced functions in
the health sector. Too often, the role is reduced to directing vehicles into
parking spaces in exchange for a token of appreciation, rather than performing
the protective duties a modern hospital demands: managing entrances, de-escalating
aggressive behaviour, safeguarding medical equipment and medicines, and
responding swiftly to emergencies. Security personnel are typically among the
lowest-paid members of the healthcare team, despite evidence that they are more
likely than clinical staff to be injured on duty with many incidents occurring
at night, when facilities are most vulnerable.
Verbal and
physical aggression against staff, theft of medicines and equipment,
trespassing, and threats to doctors and nurses are now regular occurrences.
Under these pressures, and without adequate support, some guards are themselves
at risk of burnout, substance misuse, and behavioural difficulties, even though
they remain very much part of the broader healthcare workforce. If the state
can station police at banks, courts, and alongside political officials, it is
reasonable to ask why hospitals where the most vulnerable citizens lie do not
receive comparable priority.
One practical way
to close this gap is to merge hospital security with the National Ambulance
Service into a single, formidable unit a Hospital Security and Emergency
Services (HSES). Both functions exist to respond rapidly to crises in and
around health facilities: one to threats of violence, theft, or unauthorised
access, and the other to medical emergencies. In practice, these crises
frequently overlap.
A violent
altercation may produce injuries requiring immediate medical attention, and an
ambulance crew responding to an emergency may need security support to manage a
hostile scene. By bringing both functions under one command, personnel could
receive rigorous, integrated training in both security protocols and emergency
preparedness, ensuring that every officer on duty is equipped to handle
whichever crisis arises first, at the barest minimum.
Such an
amalgamation is not without precedent. Ghana has previously merged specialised
state services to improve efficiency and coordination most notably the merger
of the Internal Revenue Service and the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service
to form the Ghana Revenue Authority. That experience shows that distinct
institutional cultures can be successfully unified under a single
administrative framework when the rationale is sound and the transition is well
managed. A similar approach to hospital security and ambulance services would
consolidate scarce resources, harmonise training standards, and create a
clearer career structure for personnel who currently operate in relative
isolation.
A merged Hospital
Security and Emergency Services unit would offer several advantages. It would
enable a faster, more coordinated response to incidents that combine security
and medical dimensions. It would professionalise hospital security, improving
training, pay, and morale, and reducing the behavioural and mental health
pressures currently affecting poorly supported guards. It would establish
consistent protocols across facilities nationwide, rather than the patchwork
arrangements that exist today. And it would send a clear signal that the safety
of patients, staff, and visitors and the dignity of the deceased is treated
with the same seriousness as the security afforded to banks, courts, and state
officials.
Hospitals should be sanctuaries, not sites
of fear. Merging the National Ambulance Service with hospital security offers a
practical, holistic pathway towards that goal one that draws on Ghana’s own
experience of successful institutional mergers and responds directly to the
realities health workers and patients face every day. Policymakers, health
administrators, and security agencies should give this proposal serious
consideration as part of a broader commitment to health safety and security for
all.
Dorcas Inaka Abakli-Zakli
Senior Procurement Manager
Ghana College of Pharmacists
Email: queeninaka@yahoo.com