Rural health boosted as Naledi Sub-district receives high tech ICU bus
The North West Health MEC Madoda Sambatha has welcomed the acquisition of a state of the art Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Bus by the Naledi Emergency Medical Services (EMS). The vehicle has been installed with high technology medical equipment which will allow for lives to be saved en-route to medical facilities in the district.
One of the key features of the bus is its spaciousness and capacity to accommodate a sufficient number of EMS personnel to attend to critical patients as well as extra on-board equipment which could previously not be transported due to vehicle space constraints.
“Whenever an emergency strikes and the hospital is too far, ambulances save lives on the go. This ICU Bus gives us an assurance that we will be able to timeously preserve lives of our people by having critical medical equipment at hand,” MEC Sambatha said.
MEC Sambatha went on to indicate that, previously, the Department’s response vehicles could not fit most medical equipment and had to keep some of the apparatus in the office because of insufficient space. Now this challenge has been addressed by the newly acquired ICU Bus.
The ICU Bus has been fitted with the following medical equipment
• An Incubator.
• A 12 Lead ICG
• A Neonatal Incubator
• Two Syringe drives
• Two Infusion pumps
• A Hamilton H1 Ventilator
• A Suction unit ( Electronic )
• A Manual Suction Unit
• A CPAP –UCL device & connections
• Two Large Oxygen cylinders
• One Portable cylinder
• Consumables
Source: Government of South Africa