OCHO RIOS, St Ann — The North East Regional Health Authority (NERHA), which manages public health facilities in St Ann, St Mary and Portland, has acquired two new vehicles at a cost of $18 million, hoping they will boost the delivery of health-care services to residents.

One of the two 2020 Nissan Urvans has been deployed to the regional immunisation programme, while the other has been assigned to the Alexandria Community Hospital in St Ann.

Both vehicles were handed over during a ceremony on Tuesday outside NERHA’s regional office in Ocho Rios, St Ann.

With the addition of a $11.2-million ambulance, there are now two emergency vehicles available at Alexandria Community Hospital. The other is a 2012 Hyundai H1, which is sometimes challenged by mechanical issues, according to Fabia Lamm, regional director at NERHA.

“The new vehicle replaces a 10-year-old ambulance that was being used by the hospital. It needed to be replaced, but, because of the brand, it was very difficult to secure parts for it. There was a lot of downtime and so we were not able to provide the services needed there at Alexandria,” Lamm told journalists.

She explained that the older ambulance will now be totally dedicated to maternal services.

“The new one will assist the hospital to move other patients who may need to go to St Ann’s Bay Hospital and other hospitals, or even [elsewhere] for diagnostic care,” she added.

Allison Wisdom-Denton, administrator at Alexandria Community Hospital, is ecstatic that the medical facility has been provided with an additional ambulance to serve a population of approximately 30,000 people.

“I am very elated and I do express on a larger scale the feeling of the people who will benefit from the use of the new ambulance. It was well needed; it was timely. We appreciate the effort that has been put in and the monies that were expended in giving us this vehicle,” said Wisdom-Denton.

“Based on statistical reports that we do, we see where we tend to have motor vehicle accidents that require the use of the ambulance — along with other regular communicable diseases,” Wisdom-Denton added.

In the meantime, Lamm said the vehicle for the regional immunisation programme was procured with just over $6.7 million, adding that it replaces a 13-year-old vehicle.

“We have invested to replace that vehicle based on the need to ensure the immunisation levels among the population are met,” she said. “We would have already received a bus totally designated for the COVID-19 vaccine programme, but we do administer many other types of vaccines.”

The new vehicles, along with those previously available, are enough to serve the areas in which they have been placed, according to Laura Heron, chairman of NERHA.

She added that, as time goes by, the authority will evaluate and determine if it is necessary to provide more vehicles. Heron also underscored the importance of constantly upgrading the fleet.

“After a while, with some of these older vehicles, it really becomes not cost-effective to continue to try and maintain them. It makes sense to change them out after a period of time from an economic perspective… We are very happy to be doing this [upgrade of the fleet] despite all of the challenges over the last two years with the pandemic and the shifting of our resources to be able to handle that,” she said.

Heron also noted that one of NERHA’s main focuses this year is to support the Ministry of Health and Wellness in promoting healthy lifestyles. That, she argued, would help to reduce the demand for vehicles such as the two new ones that have been handed over.

“The focus is going to be in trying to get the people of Jamaica to be a healthier, more focused nation when it comes to their self-health mentally and physically. The region is here to support all of that, because I think we really do exhaust our resources in things like hypertension, diabetes, these sorts of things that really come about because people are not as focused on their own health and taking care of themselves,” Heron added.