Ondo announces takeoff of emergency medical service

The Ondo State Government has announced the readiness of its Emergency Medical Service Agency to commence operation across the state, even as training has begun in earnest for officers in charge of the agency’s operation.
Briefing newsmen in Akure yesterday, the state Commissioner for Information, Kayode Akinmade said the agency would begin full operation as soon as the officers were through with their training.
According to Akinmade, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dayo Adeyanju had, before the Ramadan holiday declared open, a one-week training for the officers, who were expected to work at the five strategic locations of the agency in the state.
The locations are Ikare -Akoko, Owo, Bolorunduro, Ilara and Ore, where  he said the medical team would be available and could be contacted for any emergency medical situation.
Akinmade said the Medical Service Agency would begin full operation as soon as the officers were done with their training this week.
“It is a refresher course basically and those undergoing the training are paramedics, rescue teams, corpse dispatchers and ambulance drivers,” Akinmade said, adding that all other logistics for smooth operations were already in place.
He said the officers had been trained to ensure that the programme callers were attended to immediately.
“Before the various telephone numbers of the teams are released to the public, the facilities would be test-run with all the stakeholders such as members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Commercial Motorcycle Riders and members of the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN), among others,” the information commissioner said, charging all stakeholders to collaborate with the officers of the agency to make its set objective realisable.
According to him, the operation of the agency was one of the rescue measures being put in place by the state government to save lives, especially that of accident victims across the state.
He said most accident victims lost their lives due to lack of quick medical attention but announced however, that, “with the agency in place, the situation will change and lives will be preserved.”