Malteser International, the Order of Malta’s worldwide relief agency, has launched a new Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for the public ambulance service, in Nairobi Kenya. In the future the office will be used for the organization of ambulance missions and the distribution of patients to hospitals. The project is organised in conjunction with Malteser International’s partner Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS).
The new centre can be reached via a toll-free emergency number. Using software and GPS tracking of ambulances, staff at the office can efficiently manage and target ambulances. Malteser International has been supporting the expansion of the ambulance services in Kenya since the beginning of 2020.
As part of the project, and among other things, Malteser International has already trained 610 emergency workers and has equipped 20 ambulances in accordance with international standards. In addition, Malteser International staff in Kenya supported NMS in the development of guidelines for emergency services in Nairobi, as well as 10 counties in the preparation of decentralized emergency plans for early clinical intervention and emergency care.
“We have been working with NMS and the Kenyan Ministry of Health for a long time now. That’s why we chose Nairobi as the starting point for our work. Our goals for the coming years are to expand the rescue system step by step to other regions,” says Martin Schömburg, head of Malteser International country office in Kenya. The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
At the opening ceremony in October, Malteser International and the Sovereign Order of Malta jointly handed over 250,000 surgical masks to NMS in order to support its work in the fight against Covid-19. The masks are going to be distributed in 27 health facilities.
Malteser International has been active in the health sector in Kenya since 2001. A special focus is the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS among disadvantaged groups in the slums of Nairobi and among the indigenous ethnic group of the Maasai.
