Saturday, June 28, 2014

New ambulances in Karamoja!


On Thursday I passed this brand new "bicycle ambulance".  (This by the way is the main road to all of central Karamoja.) I had been hearing for a while that these were coming but I had lost hope because nothing seemed to be coming of it. The idea is that you station a few of these in the remote villages and people at least stand a little better chance getting to live saving treatment in time.  It is like one of those pull behind bike trailers for little kids. Only these are big enough to put a mostly reclining adult in.  Any bike can pull it.
  I put a map here to try to show you where this guy was riding from. The red region is Karamoja. Please ignore the fact that it says travel advisory. It is just the best map I could find.  If you look on the right side in the middle, on the border between green and red, is Soroti. When I passed this guy I was between Katakwi and Napak. (Side note: There is no city of Napak, that is the name of the district. It should read Irirri but it is still the best map I could find.) If you draw a line between Moroto and Amudat he is headed to a village roughly half way between those cities on the line. 
I estimate he had to ride roughly 100km. Well, I passed him again on Friday. He is now about 3 km to Nakayot so he is almost there! I did notice that the first guy now is on a bike that isn't pulling anything and there is a second guy pulling the cart. The good news is that if he is carrying a patient he will only have to go about 25km to the one of the small clinics where they will be able to call an ambulance. One with an internal combustion engine and not just leg power. I really hope this saves lives. 



No comments: