Eswatini can thrive with more inter-organisational collaborations – Health Director

Director of Health Services in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Vusi Magagula has implored other organisations to emulate the partnership between the SMVA Fund and EPR, saying that similar collaborations amongst relevant stakeholders would immensely benefit the country at large.

Magagula made these remarks when officially accepting a Mercedes Benz Sprinter ambulance worth E2.4 million on behalf of Health Minister Lizzie Nkosi from SMVAF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) David Myeni at the Fund’s Head Office yesterday. 

This ambulance has the capacity to carry more than one patient at a time and is the second ambulance to be donated to the EPR this year after presenting a Toyota Quantum worth E1.3 million in March.

All this is in response to fulfilling the Fund’s proactive Seamless Sincephetelo Strategy 20/24 which entails a new proactive collaborative partnership between the Fund and the Ministry to provide advanced life support to patients in the event of an accident occurrence.

The partnership has also seen the relocation of the Road Traffic Accident Call Centre to the Funds premises, which informs the SMVAF from the time an accident is reported through EPR, through to patient evacuation from accident scene down to the post-crash value chain.

“The MVA Fund has set a precedence that other organisations should replicate when it comes to collaborations that can benefit the nation. Their gesture of donating ambulances to assist government in treating accident victims is highly commendable and if organisations that have similar mandates could also collaborate and share resources, the country would thrive,” he said.

SMVAF CEO David Myeni said that these donations were activations of collaborative partnerships signed earlier this year between the Fund and the EPR through the Health Ministry in ensuring that accident victims received the best customer experience possible in the event of an accident occurrence.

“Part of our strategy embraces the proactive evacuation and treatment of road crash victims from accident scenes to admission in hospitals.  Capacitating the EPR Unit will therefore assist in the mission of effective accident response, dispatch and treatment of road crash victims within the golden hour as espoused by the EPR core values,” highlighted Myeni.

Myeni disclosed that post-crash care was a critical component of the actions to undertake as evidence had shown that most road crash traffic deaths occurred in the pre-hospital phase, therefore they wanted to circumvent such deaths through rapid responsiveness.

…MVA CEO promises 4 more ambulances by December

After handing over two advanced life support ambulances worth a combined E3.7 million to EPR since March this year, MVA CEO David Myeni has promised 4 more ambulances to the Ministry of Health by December.

He reminded the meeting that effective March this year, all ambulances that responded to road crashes were now dispatched through the EPR Call Centre located within the Fund. He said that this Call Centre served as a one stop shop in the reporting of road accidents which was a critical trigger for their case management department to start following up on hospital admissions.

“Our aim is to hand over a total of six ambulances to the EPR department by December this year that will be used solely for road crashes.  Allow me to highlight that we will not stop with handing over the ambulance units only, but we shall also be responsible for jointly managing the ambulance fleet to ensure that the units are properly utilised including being responsible for fuelling and maintaining the units directly,” he said.

Myeni also stressed that as signatories to the United Nations Decade of Action 2020/30, the Fund had committed to helping government reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries due to road crashed by 50% by 2030.

“To give further effect to the strategy of the drastic reduction of preventable road crashed, the Fund has also established and Internal Accident Reduction and Public Education department whose sole objective will be to collaborate with stakeholders in the prevention of road carnage,” he added.