Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, on Tuesday, disclosed that his administration met five functional ambulances serving the entire state when it assumed office on May 29, 2019.
Abiodun, who declared that his administration placed high premium and value on the health and emergency response as an important sector in the state, said 12 additional ambulances had since been bought by his government.
According to him, his administration was aiming at making at least an ambulance available in each of the 26 state constituencies.
The governor, who made this known when he received the Governing Board of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), led by its chairman, Ambassador Fatima Balla Abubakar, in his Oke Mosan, Abeokuta office, said plans were also under way to grow the number of ambulances in the state to over 30 from the initial five he met on ground.
Abiodun added that the state government recently launched its 24-hour ambulance response service across the state, noting that the service would avail the people of the state the opportunity to call the emergency number and get emergency responses on time.
“The issue of health and emergency response is an important sector to us. When this administration came into office, I think we had about five ambulances. Today, we have 17 ambulances; but we are not even there yet.
“I demanded the commitment of a few of our public private sector partners and I believe that between now and the next 30 days, we should have about 30 ambulances in the state.
“Our plan is to ensure that each state constituency has one ambulance and we have 26 of such state constituency and then we now have others that will be servicing tertiary hospitals. We have just launched our 24-hour ambulance response service across the state. At any point in time, you can call our emergency number and you get our emergency response,” the governor stated.
Earlier in her remarks, Ambassador Balla Abubakar commended the Ogun State government for making the NYSC orientation camp in the state the best in the country.
She noted that since it came on board, the Abiodun-led administration had shown 100 per cent commitment towards the success of the scheme in the state through the restoration of electricity to the NYSC state secretariat after years of neglect as well as the constant rehabilitation of the camp.
