Ambulances, Start Your Engines

Since the 2014 Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, donated ambulances have been sitting idle in a country with no emergency transport budget. But in 2019 they’ll start their engines again under the new National Emergency Medical Service (NEMS), which will take on 170 donated ambulances and 1,000 staff.

The World Bank-funded project will be Sierra Leone’s first comprehensive national ambulance service, but it’s still relatively few vehicles—working out to 1 ambulance per 45,000 people. That makes priority-setting a challenge; for now, pregnant women top the list, but the country’s scores of deadly road wrecks also vie for attention, as would another nationwide epidemic.

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