Area 25 Health Centre gets new ambulance

Area 25 Health Centre in Lilongwe has received a new ambulance, replacing one which was damaged in a road accident in December last year.

The new ambulance, a Toyota Hiace registration LL8404 worth K12.8 million, was handed over to the facility last week by Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) through Lilongwe district health officer (DHO) Alinafe Mbewe.

Mbewe said the ambulance will relieve all health facilities linked to Area 25 Health Centre in terms of mobility of patients.

“Since the accident which damaged our ambulance in December last year, we have been using one ambulance which was overwhelmed due to demand from various health facilities within the city,” she said.

BCM managing director Jeffrey Wilkinson said the institution chose a Hiace over a Land Cruiser, considering maintenance costs and the fact that there is already a Land Cruiser ambulance which goes in hard-to-reach areas.

“We considered the fact that it will be running within easy-to-reach areas while the Land Cruiser, which is already there, will continue to serve hard-to-reach areas,” he said.

Wilkinson said an ambulance is important to a health facility as it helps minimise deaths which would have occurred due to delays in transferring  patients from one facility to the other.

Apart from the ambulance, BCM is also constructing a modern operating theatre at the facility which will reduce congestion at Bwaila and Kamuzu Central Hospitals once completed. n