The Government of Sierra Leone has deployed 105 ambulances across the country to strengthen emergency medical referrals, in a move officials say will improve access to lifesaving care for pregnant women, children and other patients who need urgent treatment.

The announcement was made at a town hall at the Miatta Civic Centre in Freetown, held to mark 300 days of activism under the Triple Zero campaign, the government’s drive to eliminate preventable deaths among mothers and children.

Health officials told the gathering that the new fleet is meant to close a long-standing gap in Sierra Leone’s health system: getting patients with complications from rural and hard-to-reach communities to hospitals equipped to treat them. Dr Francis Moses, Director of Reproductive and Child Health, said an effective referral network is essential to the country’s maternal and child health goals, noting that ambulances allow patients to reach higher-level facilities quickly when complications arise, particularly in areas with poor roads, rough terrain and long distances to the nearest health facility.

Dr Jalikatu Mustapha, Deputy Minister of Health II, used the event to reaffirm the Ministry of Health’s commitment to keeping emergency referral services running at all times. “No day off, no night off, no rain season off,” she said, underscoring that the referral system is expected to operate continuously regardless of weather or season.

Officials at the town hall were careful to stress that ambulances alone will not solve the problem. They said the success of the new deployment depends heavily on communities themselves: recognising danger signs in pregnancy and childhood illness early, knowing how to activate the emergency referral system, and acting quickly once a crisis emerges. Paramount chiefs, local councils and community health workers were singled out as central to that chain, with officials urging them to continue promoting early antenatal care, routine immunisation and timely treatment at the community level, so that families seek help before an emergency becomes life-threatening.

The Triple Zero campaign, now marking 300 days of continuous activism, has positioned maternal and child mortality as one of the government’s signature public health priorities. Sierra Leone has historically recorded some of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world, a legacy that successive governments have tried to address through expanded health infrastructure, training of birth attendants and, as with this latest announcement, investment in emergency transport.

The event did not disclose the cost of the ambulance deployment or the source of its funding, and organisers did not specify which development partners, if any, financed the purchase. The scale of the rollout — spanning the whole country — nonetheless marks one of the more substantial recent investments in Sierra Leone’s emergency referral infrastructure, at a time when the government has faced scrutiny over gaps in rural healthcare access.

For now, officials say the focus turns to deployment and community readiness, with health authorities and traditional leaders expected to continue coordinating on how quickly referrals can be activated once the ambulances are in place nationwide.

Sources: AYV News, “Government deploys 105 ambulances to save mothers, children” (ayvnews.com)