Cordaid South Sudan, an international NGO Tuesday donated a brand new ambulance to Torit County of South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria state to facilitate referrals within the state.
The donation was made possible with funding from the Health Pool Fund. Health officials say the county has not had an ambulance since 2016.
Bure Juma Wani, the area coordinator for Cordaid in Torit said his organization will provide maintenance services including fuelling the ambulance.
He appealed to the county authorities to ensure proper management of the ambulance so that the people in Torit and its environs will benefit from its services.
“We are serving our own lives and we are serving the lives of our community. This function is to hand over the ambulance to the county. The ambulance is here to support the lives of our community to operate in the county,” Juma said.
Ladu Reuben, the Health Pool Fund project support officer says the ambulance will help reduce maternal deaths.
“We are fulfilling our mandate of the referral system in the county where we think that there must be a mechanism to refer our mothers. We are keen to see that our mothers should be brought to deliver in a facility where they will be accorded skilled delivery,” he said. “We are very happy today we are handing this ambulance to our community, we don’t want to hear that a mother died in the village because of referral.”
He added, “Our referrals will be focusing on our pregnant mothers in the villages who are unable to come to the facility.”
Torit county commissioner Jacob Attari Albano said the ambulance will also serve communities out of Torit and called on the health ministry to allocate a separate body to carry dead bodies so that the ambulance carries the sick.
Tobia Magesi Omal, who represented the state ministry of health also stressed that the ambulance should only be used to carry the sick.
“This ambulance is going to carry the living and not the dead. We are working with the ministry of public utility so that they can get a vehicle that will be hired to carry coffins,” he said. “I know as politicians people will be calling our commissioner here but we should not carry the dead.”
Furthermore, Omal called on the ministry to ensure that the ambulance is properly taken care of so that it can serve longer.