Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-07-25

Setting up of an Emergency Pre-Hospital Care Ambulance Service in Sri Lanka

- In accordance with the Agreement signed by the Government of Sri Lanka and the GVK EMRI Lanka (Private) Limited, an Emergency Pre-Hospital Care Ambulance Service project was launched on 29th of July 2016, to be implemented in the Western and Southern Provinces and to be in force for a period of one year from the date of its commencement. Under this project 88 ambulances have been deployed in the Emergency Pre-Hospital Care Ambulance Service and the Emergency Response Centre has handled 236,000 calls by the end of April 2017 and about 130 - 135 patients have been transported daily by this service with an average response time of 12.52 minutes. Having taken the success of this project into consideration, the proposal made by Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Prime Minister to arrange financial provision to further continue with the service uninterruptedly, was approved by the Cabinet.