Malé, Maldives – Health Minister of Maldives Ahmed Naseem has said that 96 ambulances will arrive in Maldives latest by next month.
Health Minister Naseem also said that 96 ambulances worth MVR 105 have been ordered, and may be received sometime this month or next month. Speaking at the Maldives parliament, the Minister previously said that the ambulances will be received in April 2021 at the earliest and by June 2021 all islands will have an ambulance.
The statement in March 2021 was made by Minister Naseem after he was called to the Parliament at the request of the Member of Constituency of Makunudhoo, Mohamed Raai saying that ambulances have not arrived at the island of Makunudhoo even after saying twice that ambulances will be sent.
At last night’s press conference, Health Minster Naseem reiterated the statement from March 2021 and reassured that once the ambulances are received, there will be no ambulances related difficulties in the Maldives.
The Health Minister made the statement in a press conference last night regarding the negligence death of a 10 year old girl, who passed away following an ambulance response time delay of 2 hours 25 minutes.
Health Ministry had earlier told that in light of this incident, immediate changes have been implemented by the Ministry to the mechanism that triggers ambulance deployment.
This comes while earlier in May 2021, an ambulance took 1 hour 20 minutes to arrive for someone who collapsed in quarantine. While the Addu Emergency Operations Center were on top of the situation, according to the family they simply did not have the resources. Another incident took place in Malé where it took 4 hours for an ambulance to collect a Covid-19 positive patient who had collapsed in isolation.
The Covid-19 situation has deteriorated rapidly in the Maldives in the past month with the virus spreading to all parts of the country and death rates increasing exponentially.
Doctors are warning that Maldives that Covid-19 is out of control in the country, and the healthcare workers are stretched to their limits.
With the active health facilities in the country overburdened with Covid-19 patients, the non-Covid-19 treatments are threatened to be hampered. Medical professionals have repeatedly stressed the threat of medical facilities being overburdened to the point that they have to choose patients to treat depending on who is sicker.
