The proposed National Health Insurance Scheme will only have meaning when augmented with a national emergency ambulance system, a critical component in quality care. Legislators of the Committee on Health who are currently benchmarking Israel’s healthcare system said that presently the semblance of an ambulance service is what is rendered by the Ministry of Health, Uganda Red Cross Society, St. John’s Ambulance, the police and army in emergency situations.
“An ambulance system must be the package of health services rendered to Ugandans. We need a policy that will feed this service into the national health services,” the Chairperson Committee on Health, Dr. Kenneth Omona, said while meeting Magen David Adom, Israel’s ambulance service and disaster rescue agency on Thursday, 6th November 2014 in Israel.
Dr. Omona heaped praise on Magen David Adom for running what he called the biggest hi-tech and national emergency system in Israel. Magen David Adom, which was established in 1950, has 45 branches throughout Isreal and has a paramedic system in every ambulance providing life support. The facility, which relies on over 13,000 trained volunteers to serve the country’s population of 8million, has state-of-the-art life support ambulances, mobile intensive care units, motorbikes and all terrain vehicles.
The Commissioner for Health Services in Charge of Planning in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Francis Runumi, also noted that in Uganda, some vehicles bear the word “Ambulance” yet are they are just patient transport vehicles often manned by people with no basic emergency training.
“We are still a disorganised entity that needs to put our act together. We need to come up with a Uganda National Ambulance Services and there is goodwill from government and development partners are willing to inject in some money,” he said
The delegation of Members of the Health Committee that are on a study visit to Israel from Monday 3rd to Friday 8th November 2014 and include Hon. Dr. Omona Kenneth, MP Kaberamaido (Chairperson, Committee on Health), Hon. Dr. Bitekyerezo Medard, MP Mbarara Municipality, Hon. Wadada Femiar, MP Sironko District, Hon. Anite Evelyn, Youth MP and Dr. Francis Runumi, the Commissioner for Health Services in Charge of Planning in the Ministry of Health, who also Chairs the taskforce tasked with designing the National Health Insurance Scheme.
The week long study visit is organised by King David Medicine, a privately owned firm headquartered in Haifa, Israel with operations in Africa.