#EndSARS: FG refurbishes five vandalised ambulance points in Lagos

Three years after they were vandalised, in the aftermath of the civil unrest of October 2020 tagged EndSARS, the Saving One Million Lives Programme for Result (SOML-PforR), a Federal Government initiative to strengthen health service delivery, has refurbished five ambulance points in Lagos.

SOML-PforR is a Federal Government of Nigeria Maternal and Child Health Programme supported by the World Bank, which provides incentives, based on achievement of results (health outcome) and helps to drive institutional processes needed to achieve these results.

The new look ambulance points are located at Lagos Tollgate end of the Lagos-Ibadan Express way; Mile 12 in Kosofe Local Council; Third Mainland Bridge; Anthony along Oshodi-Oke Expressway and Mobil along Lekki-Epe Expressway in Eti-Osa Local Council.

Speaking at the official commissioning and handover of one of the newly refurbished points located at Tollgate, Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Health, Dr Olusegun Ogboye, said the old dilapidated and vandalised ambulance points were replaced with new prefabricated and transferable architecture consisting of an ambulance hanger and a workstation or office space for ambulance crew.

He explained that the construction of ambulance points in strategic areas of Lagos was first mooted in 2001 during the administration of the then Governor of Lagos State, and now the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, to reduce the response time of first responders to accident scenes, especially accident prone areas.

Ogboye said the infrastructure and crew at the ambulance points have been targets of hostilities in host communities and civil unrest, with the latest being the civil unrest of October 2020, which resulted in destruction of the ambulance points infrastructure.

He said other ideas geared towards protecting the ambulance infrastructure and crew are currently being worked on by Governor Sanwo-Olu-led administration in Lagos State, stressing that the state government planned to station ambulance points in all local council secretariats where it can be deployed at any time of the day.

Earlier, the Coordinator, SOML-PforR, Dr. Mazeedat Erinosho, said the initiative was aimed at strengthening maternal and child health indices across the 36 states of the Federation using a set of Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs) among which is improving quality of service delivery.