NERHA hands over ambulances
TWO AMBULANCES and a panel van, acquired at a cost of more than $33 million, have been handed over to health facilities by the North East Regional Health Authority (NERHA), which oversees the parishes of St Ann, St Mary and Portland.
During the handover ceremony, held on Wednesday at the Ocean Village Shopping Centre in Ocho Rios, St Ann, regional director of NERHA, Fabia Lamm, said NERHA has a fleet of 57 vehicles, 19 of which are ambulances disbursed within a healthcare network of five hospitals and 71 health centres.
“More specifically, the total number of ambulances within secondary care, that’s the hospital setting, is 15, and within primary care or health departments and clinics, four,” she added.
Lamm pointed out that one ambulance has been handed over to the St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital to enhance its capability to transport patients for diagnostic services and other transfers and would increase their fleet of ambulances from to five to six, and their overall fleet of vehicles from seven to eight.
“The other ambulance [goes] to the St Mary Health Department to strengthen their response to emergencies at the health centres, and based on the gravity of illnesses, to transfer patients from health centres within the parish to hospitals. This increases the number of ambulances within the St Mary Health Department from one to two, and their fleet of vehicles from eight to nine,” she said.
She also said the panel van has been deployed to the Port Maria Hospital, in St Mary.
She explained that acquisition of the new vehicles formed part of NERHA’S thrust to upgrade and enhance the fleet of vehicles in the region, in their continued effort to maintain and improve publicsector healthcare service delivery.
Lamm said that five additional ambulances are needed in the region and pledged that NERHA would continue to prioritise the procurement of vehicles within the Authority’s operational plan, to close the gap.
She thanked all teams involved in the upkeep of the region’s vehicles and implored “drivers and healthcare management teams who will shortly receive the new vehicles to protect these assets and ensure that we can ably serve our patients and stakeholders”.