Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State yesterday disclosed that his administration inherited only 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 Scheme Governing Board(NYSC), led by its chairman, Ambassador Fatima Balla Abubakar in his Oke Mosan, Abeokuta office, said plans were also underway 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 hours ambulance response service across the state, noting 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 seventeen ambulances, but we are not even their 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 thirty ambulances in the state.
“Our plan is to ensure that each state constituency has one ambulance and we have twenty-six of such state constituency and then we now have others that will be servicing tertiary hospitals. We have just launched our 24 hours 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.
Abiodun, while commending the scheme for ensuring national cohesion and for exposing youths in the country to the diversity of the country, noted that the scheme had helped students in interacting with their fellow students from other parts of the country.
He said that his administration would continue to support the scheme as well as ensure that the welfare of the corps members is looked into in the state, adding he had directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the state to accommodate every corps member posted to their agencies..
