EU spends J$86m to provide six ambulances for rural health-care facilities
MATERNAL HEALTH care in rural Jamaica received a significant boost recently with the official handover of six state-of-the-art ambulances to facilitate improved access to emergency prenatal and neonatal care.
The ambulances were purchased under the European Union-funded Programme for the Reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality (PROMAC), which is spearheaded by the Ministry of Health.
Speaking at the handover ceremony at the Clarendon Health Department, Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton said that the ambulances would fill a critical void, which has been partly caused by the number of inoperable ambulances currently in public health-care facilities.
“Ideally, ambulances should be used for emergency transfers either between facilities and for initial access to a facility. We now use them to transport nonurgent cases because our overall fleet, which primarily serves our secondary-care facilities, is wanting,” said Tufton.
“Such is the reality of the tight fiscal framework in which we operate. I welcome the contribution of our bilateral partners, and in this particular case, the European Union. Their presence in Jamaica continues to assist with the development of our people and infrastructure,” added Tufton.
The ambulances have been deployed to the Mandeville, St Jago Park, Annotto Bay and Savanna-la-Mar health centres, as well as the Chapelton and Alexandria community hospitals. Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton (second left) and Malgorzata Wasilewska, head of delegation of the European Union, perform the symbolic handover of six ambulances donated to rural health-care facilities while other EU and local health officials look on.
They are fully equipped to reduction in the reported emphasised the role of the primarily transport emergency numbers of stillbirths, neonatal ambulances for preservation of cases involving infant and deaths, and maternal deaths life. maternal patients between in 2016. “These ambulances, and, in primary health-care facilities fact, all the services provided and hospitals. It is anticipated under PROMAC, can make the that as a result of these difference between life and ambulances and the continued death for mother and child. It is work of PROMAC, there will entirely possible to drastically be a trending decline in reduce the number of women pregnancy-related deaths. dying in childbirth, but it takes
“The health of our women commitment and all of us working and newborns is of the utmost together,” said Wasilewska. importance. While the fertility Also using the opportunity to levels continuing to decline acknowledge statistics revealing between 2015 and 2016, we are the correlation between poverty pleased to note a three per cent and increased risk of maternal and a more than 15 per cent deaths, Wasilewska indicated
MANAGE HIGH-RISK PREGNANCY
“We anticipate further reductions in stillbirths and neonatal and maternal deaths through the work of PROMAC, which will strengthen institutional capacity to manage highrisk pregnancies,” Tufton said.
Urging stakeholders to properly maintain the vehicles, Head of Delegation of the European Union, Malgorzata Wasilewska,