Twenty-one ambulances have been deployed in the Central Province under the ‘Suwaseriya’ project, the first pre-hospital care ambulance service in Sri Lanka. Nine ambulances were deployed in the Kandy district, eight in the Nuwara-Eliya district and four in the Matale district.
The new ambulances have been deployed covering the rough mountain landscapes in some parts of the Central Province.
The service is to be expanded to the Sabaragamuwa Province and then to the Eastern Province before long, the Suwaseriya Foundation told the Daily News.
The Suwaseriya service was made available in the Northern Province in July, Uva Province in August, North Central Province in September and Northwestern Province in October. The Suwaseriya Foundation was set up by way of a Parliamentary Act with the aim to expand it to cover the entire country.
This emergency ambulance service, which is provided free, was initiated in 2016 in the Western and Southern Provinces under an Indian grant of US$ 7.5 million. The grant included the purchase of 88 ambulances, operational expenditure of the service for one year, and setting up of an emergency response centre.
The emergency ambulance service, which can be obtained by dialling the toll free number ‘1990’ on any network in Sri Lanka, is one of the largest Indian grant projects in Sri Lanka.
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