News
1990 emergency ambulance service now in Jaffna
View(s):The 1990 Suwaseriya Emergency Ambulance Service was yesterday launched in Jaffna under the patronage of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi too joined the occasion via a video conferencefrom New Delhi. Speaking on the occasion, Premier Wickrememsinghe thanked the government of India for the generous assistance, and noted that this was an important milestone in Indo-Sri Lanka bilateral relationships.
The fleet of ambulances. Pix by Thayalan
Prime Minister Modi expressed happiness that the promise he had made during his visit to the country last year, regarding the expansion of the ambulance service islandwide, will soon be a reality. Recalling his last two visits to the island, the Indian Premier highlighted that India had been and would always remain ‘the first responder’ for Sri Lanka, in both good times and bad.
The two Prime Ministers flagged off the first two ambulances. The Suwaseriya service was first launched in 2016 in the Western and Southern Provinces under an Indian grant of USD 7.5 million. This grant included the purchase of 88 ambulances, operational expenditure of the service for one year and the setting up of an emergency response centre. The service is now being expanded to the remaining seven provinces with an additional grant of USD 15.02 million, covering the cost of 209 ambulances, training costs and operational expenditure for one year in these provinces.
The emergency ambulance service can be contacted by dialing a toll free number, ‘1990’, on any network in Sri Lanka.
Several government and opposition politicians, as well the Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran and India’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Taranjit Singh Sandhu were present.
Indian Premier Narendra Modi joins Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe via video conference for the event