AMS marks two decades of service
This
year, the South African Red Cross Air Mercy Services celebrate their twentieth
year of existence.
The AMS has been providing a province-wide emergency air ambulance service since June 1998.
During this time, it has transported almost 400,000 patients to KwaZulu-Natal hospitals.
Speaking at an event to celebrate the milestone, and to launch a mobile medical training simulator unit being funded by the National Lotteries Commission, Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo's described the partnership between his department and the AMS as “extremely valuable".
“KwaZulu-Natal is an extremely mountainous province that is very vast. To travel from Kokstad to Durban takes several hours. If we have a patient that can’t be treated in a distant district, but needs Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban, this system benefits not only the department but the citizens themselves.”