Dagupan gets ambulance boat

Dagupan City’s first-ever ambulance boat is on call 24/7 to transport residents needing immediate medical attention from the island barangays to the hospital in the city’s mainland. (Contributed photo)

DAGUPAN CITY—Medical emergencies in five island villages of this coastal city will soon be answered by an ambulance boat.

The boat is equipped with basic medical emergency gadgets such as an oxygen tank and spine board, and would be manned by an emergency medical response team, said Ronald de Guzman, city disaster risk reduction and management officer.

Mayor Belen Fernandez saw the need for the ambulance boat after a series of visits to this city’s island villages of Pugaro, Salapingao, Lomboy, Carael and Calmay, he said.

“Residents used to rely only on passenger boats, which are not immediately available in the middle of the night. So, some patients were not saved because they were not immediately taken to the hospital,” De Guzman said. Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon