Digicel PNG Foundation has donated a new ambulance to the Central Provincial Health Authority (CPHA) to help boost health services in the province.
The Foundation and CPHA on Tuesday signed an Ambulance Service Agreement as St John Ambulance also officially launched the first of its new ambulances.
The ambulance is one of the two ambulances donated by Digicel PNG Foundation to St. John Ambulance at the cost of half a million kina.
The first Land cruiser ambulance will service the people of Central province, it will be sent to the Bereina health centre.
St. John Ambulance CEO, Matt Cannon said the ambulance is the first Reservist Ambulance, which is fully equipped with basic life support facilities. It will have a defibrillator oxygen and trauma supplies.
Cannon said it is an opportunity to improve pr-hospital care, and added: “Having skilled ambulance staff and the ambulance will reduce the waiting time between Bereina and Port Moresby in attending to an emergency.”
He said critical emergency cases like a mother in labour losing blood or a snake bite, basically it takes up to two hours to transport a patient from Bereina hospital to Port Moresby. Unfortunately, many snake bite victims die along the way.
Matt Cannon thanked the Digicel Foundation for the timey donation. He also thanked Dr James Amini is with CPHA for having confidence in St. John Ambulance.
CPHA CEO Dr. James Amini in the meantime thanked Digicel Foundation and its board for the donation, which he said will assist a lot.
“Central lacks specialist medical doctors to attend to the health needs of the people and such assistance with well-equipped facilities goes a long way,” Dr Amini said.
Digicel Foundation CEO, Serena Sasingian said since the launch of DF in 2008 Digicel Foundation has invested a total of K129 million into health and education projects along throughout the country.
“We have done that because of the ethos of our chairman and also the patron for Digicel Foundation, Dennis O’Brian.
“In the area of health we know that access to health services is essential for our people so we have over the 12 years supported health centres with purchasing over 41 ambulances that have gone out to rural health centres across PNG,” said Sasingian.
Meantime, the Digicel Foundation will meet the cost of training 10 health workers from Central PHA on basic ambulance operations and essential life support equipment.