Sindh govt to finance increase of Aman Foundation’s fleet

The Aman Foundation, a not-for-profit social impact organisation, and the Sindh government are in an advanced stage of negotiations to increase the fleet of Aman Ambulance Service from 60 ambulances to 100 by December this year and to run its operations under the public-private partnership mode, officials of the foundation said on Tuesday.

They said most of the expenses would be borne by the provincial government. “Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah wants addition of 40 ambulances in our fleet by December this year and we are in an advanced stage of negotiations with the provincial government to acquire funds to enhance our fleet by 100 ambulances by end of this year and 200 by the end of 2019,” Khaqan Sikander, head of strategic operations, Aman Foundation, told The News.

But Aman Foundation officials made it clear that the provincial government was not going to take over the ambulance service, which would continue to be managed and run by the foundation’s management.

The foundation has been not only managing this service for the last 10 years in Karachi but has also launched People’s Ambulance Service under the public-private partnership in Thatta and Sajawal districts of Sindh in the past two years.

Officials of the organisation claimed that they had been spending hundreds of millions of rupees annually to keep the fleet of 60 ambulances on city roads for the last several years, but despite donations from the public and corporate sectors, it was becoming extremely hard for them to bear the operational cost of the service as the foundation had been under a constant financial burden for quite some time.

“The major share of operation expenses of the ambulance service is being borne by the Board of Trustees of the Aman Foundation and, with each passing day, it is becoming difficult to run it on the existing model. The provincial government’s collaboration in this regard would revitalise this essential emergency service, which is the need of this city,” Sikander said.

He further said the government had decided in principle to bear the cost of the ambulance service and now they were in advanced stages of signing an agreement. He added that initially the name of the ambulance service would remain Aman Ambulance Service, but later the nomenclature could be changed through mutual agreement.

Aman Foundation people, however, said that if the agreement between the government and the foundation was not signed within the next few weeks, they would be unable to increase their fleet to 100 ambulances by the end of this year as the purchase of suitable vehicles, their conversion into ambulances and arranging trained and qualified manpower consumed a considerable time.

No plan for air ambulance

The Aman Foundation has no plan so far to add any air ambulance to their fleet in the years to come, Sikander said, adding that at the moment they were concentrating on meeting the emergency medical services’ needs of Karachiites through four-wheelers instead of wasting precious resources on aircraft.

He remarked that a city like Karachi required 200 ambulances like those of the Aman Foundation which were equipped with essential life-saving equipment and medicines as well as trained and qualified paramedics who could provide emergency medical facilities to patients during their transportation to hospitals.

Impact of amended bill

To a query, the Aman Foundation official said there was a negligible impact of the amended motor vehicles’ bill passed by the previous provincial assembly, saying there was still a need to educate the masses about giving way to ambulances. But he added that owing to mistrust among people, motorists were reluctant to give way to ambulances on roads. “Unfortunately in the past, drivers of some ambulance services drove their vehicles in such a way that they lost their respect and trust in them. Owing to this, motorists are still reluctant to clear way for the ambulance on city roads.”