BARBADOS IS looking at legislation and other measures to improve the “roll-out” of ambulance services.
Minister of Health John Boyce made the disclosure yesterday during the handover of four new vehicles – bought by Government from Toyota dealer Nassco Limited at a total cost of $800 000 – to the Emergency Ambulance Service at its Jemmotts Lane, St Michael base.
“We have been looking, at the ministry, at the regulations that manage a facility like this and that manage ambulance services and ambulance operators and personnel throughout Barbados, whether they be employed by the Government themselves by way of the [Queen Elizabeth Hospital] or whether they are private sector, or whether they are part of the [non-governmental organisation] programme,” he said.
“So this is a regime that we want to see established. It will have a legal framework and indeed the team is now looking at some regional legislation which speaks to this kind of arrangement so that those regulations can be put in place to effectively help us to manage the whole roll-out of emergency care and management in Barbados.”
Boyce said the new ambulances would help improve Barbados’ ability to respond to medical emergencies, building back the ambulance fleet “to the level which we need to be at to manage this service properly”. (TY)
