Sea ambulances to ply the waters of Cebu soon
A sea ambulance will soon serve the emergency needs of locals in Liloan town and Camotes Islands. This was announced by Cebu 5th district representative Duke Frasco in a post on his official Instagram account on Tuesday, February 8, 2022. | Photo from Duke Frasco/Instagram
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Patients from Cebu’s fifth district will no longer have to worry about traffic when going to hospitals in Metro Cebu.
Cebu 5th District Rep. Duke Frasco announced that the national government has begun manufacturing sea ambulances, some of which are now being turned over to beneficiary local government units (LGUs).
The government has already assembled at least 30 sea ambulances, said Frasco.
These marine vessels will be used to transport patients from all localities in the fifth district to tertiary hospitals in the cities of Cebu and Mandaue.
Frasco posted on Instagram a photo of a sea ambulance intended for the local government of Liloan that is being fabricated in an undisclosed location.
View this post on Instagram
According to Frasco, in 2019, residents from Camotes Islands clamored for more travel options to help patients who needed immediate medical attention.
“During the 2019 campaign, the people of the municipalities of San Francisco, Poro, Pilar, and Tudela in the Islands of Camotes expressed to Cong Duke Frasco the many times wherein patients in Camotes would succumb to their critical condition due to limited availability of RoRo boats traveling to mainland Cebu,” he explained.
“Cong. Duke, through the Department of Health and in partnership with (Liloan) Mayor Christina (Frasco) and Senator Pia Cayetano, was able to allocate budget from the national government for the project,” he added.
Several local officials here in Cebu, particularly those from the island groups of Bantayan and Camotes, have been pushing for sea ambulances to provide a faster alternative of transporting patients to the mainland.
Back in 2017, the Cebu Provincial Government initially planned to purchase at least two sea ambulances, each with a price tag of P3.5 million.
They were intended to transport patients from Bantayan Island to the Provincial Hospital in Bogo City and from Camotes Island to the Provincial Hospital in Danao City.
In 2019, some local officials sought help from the national government to fund more sea ambulances.
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