The Ministry of Health and Wellness is expanding its ambulance fleet with the help of the Japan Embassy. Today they held a grant signing ceremony where over $200,000 US was handed over for the procurement of Two new ambulances. Jomarie Lanza attended the ceremony.
Through its continued partnership with the Embassy of Japan, The Ministry of Health and Wellness is making progress in upgrading the country's ambulance fleet. Today they signed onto Japan's Grant Assistance for Grassroots and Human Security Projects Programme for the procurement of two new ambulances which will be deployed at the Western and Northern Regional hospitals. Japan's ambassador shared a few remarks about the programme.
Nobuyuki Shirakata, Ambassador of Japan to Belize
"Today we signed with Western Regional hospital to donate two ambulances by our grassroots assistance programme. It is a programme by the Japanese Embassy to the local government. The regional entity and government."
"We have donated ambulances and garbage trucks in some of the parts of Belize. We hope as an entity, a local entity, the government will take advantage of this programme. Every year we donate around one or two times to the programme in Belize."
This isn't the first time that Japan has donated funds towards enhancing Belize's health sector. In 2022 they donated over 800,000 US dollars worth of medical equipment to 18 public hospitals and clinics across the country. And today they donated an additional two Hundred and Twelve Thousand Fifty-Eight US dollars (USD 212,058.00) for two new ambulances fully equipped with all the amenities inside. According to the Minister of Health a number of EMT training sessions have been hosted for staff and response personnel.
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health and Wellness
"Today what we did, we are here signing the grant where the people of Japan are donating two ambulances to the ministry of Health. One of them definitely will go to the western Regional Hospital and another one will be sent to the Orange Walk Northern Regional Hospital. As you know we continuously look at ways as to how we can enhance our fleet of ambulances, we have done a lot of EMT training across the country and so as we train more people we need to ensure that we have the necessary resources which is the ambulances to be able to provide additional services to our residents because there were a few older ambulances and so we had to ensure that we are trying to upgrade our fleet. Over this year alone we have gotten I think between the purchases from the ministry and grants we have received in both through the Japanese government and including The Taiwanese government and our local funding. I think we have acquired about 8 ambulances so far that has been sent across the country so this is just going to be an additional tool fleet that we are going to continue to enhance the services that we provide to the citizens of this country especially in these areas."
