Now, no Sri Lankan needs to get into a three-wheeler while fighting for life with an illness or serious injury after an accident. They do not have to wait for vehicles to be stopped or beg their neighbours to be taken to the nearest hospital during a medical emergency.
All they need to do is simply dial 1990. Within a few minutes, a modern ambulance with trained staff arrives at your doorstep to take you to the nearest hospital with emergency care. This was a dream which all Sri Lankans had since Independence. Now, it has become a reality. No Sri Lankan will die because of a delay in being transported to hospital.
The 1990 Suwa Seriya ambulance service is available countrywide as of June 23 this year, with the launch of the service in Ampara. Public Distribution and Economic Reforms Non-Cabinet Minister Dr. Harsha De Silva, Primary Industries and Social Empowerment Minister Daya Gamage, Deputy Petroleum Resources Development Minister Anoma Gamage, Indian High Commissioner Taranjit Singh Sandhu and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.
The Indian government provided US$ 7.5 million in 2016 to launch the service and the Suwa Seriya Foundation commenced through an Act of Parliament in 2018. Nearly 1,450 Sri Lankan youths are employed in the service.
The Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Ministry provided a new ambulance for Parliament recently.
The hi-tech ambulance is worth nearly Rs. 10 million and was manufactured in Germany. The Health Ministry has already provided a large number of Ford and Benz ambulances to many state hospitals and several other state health institutions across the island. Recently, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne handed over 100 such ambulances to state hospitals.
The new Benz ambulances are provided under an Austrian loan and are manufactured in Germany. The value of an ambulance is Rs. 17 million. Before handing over these ambulances, 60 new Benz ambulances and 350 new Ford ambulances had already been distributed among state hospitals.
Minister Dr. Senaratne said while a separate ambulance service is available to transport patients from one hospital to another, there was no ambulance service to transport patients from their home to a hospital. Now, there are 297 ambulances in the Suwa Seriya service.
The Health Minister said that 200 more Benz ambulances and 250 Ford ambulances will be imported to Sri Lanka.
“An air ambulance service will commence in Sri Lanka soon with German assistance,” Minister Dr. Senaratne said after accepting 20 modern ambulances with hi-tech equipment from Austria. He said that this is the first of 100 ambulances to be obtained under an Austrian loan scheme. Under the first phase of the project, 100 Benz ambulances will be brought into Sri Lanka and another 100 ambulances will be brought under the second phase.
Minister Senaratne said a Cabinet paper was submitted to import 200 more ambulances. There are plans to provide an emergency treatment unit (ETU), two wards and an ambulance to each primary health care unit in the country.
The Minister said the loan from Austria was interest-free. Annually, there are around 25,000 fatal accidents in the country. Most of the victims die due to the delay in transporting them to a hospital. A modern ambulance service similar to that available in Europe will be launched in Sri Lanka soon.
Health Minister Dr. Senaratne presented a Cabinet paper to permit ambulances to travel on the expressways toll-free. Earlier, health workers who travelled in ambulances with the patient in critical condition had to pay for expressway toll fees from their pockets.
Expressways are used when a critical patient has to be transferred to the Colombo National Hospital.
According to Health Ministry sources, recently a private ambulance service had charged Rs. 25,000 from the guardians of a patient to transport her to a private hospital in Colombo from home. Though the service providers had first said they would charge only Rs. 9,000, after transporting the patient, they had charged Rs. 25,000 from the family. The ambulance service was not affiliated to a hospital, the Minister said.
from daily news