- SMVAF hands over Ambulance worth E1.2 million to EPR specially made to offer advanced life support
- 977 call centre for road accidents which now will be housed at MVA.
Mbabane: Sincephetelo Motor Vehicle Accident Fund (SMVAF) has joined hands with Emergency Preparedness Response (EPR) on road accident response.
The partnership of EPR and MVA was launched at the MVA headquarters on Wednesday morning, at an event which was attended by top officials from the Ministry of Health, EPR, Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) and SMVAF management.
The partnership launch also saw a hand over of an ambulance by SMVAF worth E1.2 million to EPR, specially made to offer advanced life support to road accident victims.
The EPR is the Ministry of Health’s vital public service that coordinates and delivers pre-hospital medicine, epidemic preparedness and response and disaster risk management for health victims of sudden and serious illness or injury.
This means that road call centre and response unit under EPR will now be housed at SMVAF, where all call made through 977 reporting road accidents will then be transferred to the special emergency response team housed at the SMVAF fund.
This emerged during the launch of the 977 call centre especially for road traffic accidents which now will be housed at MVA.
The partnership is part of the SMVAF 2020-2024 seamless strategy which was launched in April 2020. This is meant at increasing the responsiveness on road traffic accidents and victims.
Representing the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health Dr. Vusi Magagula thanked MVAF for the partnership saying it will go a long way ensuring a quick and prompt response on road accidents.
Speaking during the event the SMVAF CEO David Myeni said after the launch of their strategy they started with extensive engagements with key stakeholders who are enablers of the proactive strategy.
Following meetings with stakeholders, the CEO said they were able to crystalize synergies, one being the need to collaborate in the evacuation of accident victims from the accident scene and sharing of necessary data so that their case management officers can immediately start working on a claimant.
“We are happy for support from ministry of health as well as management of both institutions over the months of active engagement, culminating to the signing of an MoU at the beginning of 2021,” Myeni said.
Myeni said they have also re-branded the Call Centre in preparation for the partnership. He said the EPR team will continue to focus on receiving calls from their 977 toll free line, which will now be re-routed to the traffic desk located at the fund. The EPR team will remain employees of government, and are not necessarily employed by the fund.
“This move places us at a position where we can afford accident victims the best chance to a normal life, as we would have intervened early to ensure that their treatment from accident scene to recovery is seamless,” Myeni said.
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