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118 Ambulances - Malawi Ministry of Health

Malawi 118 Emergency Medical System

Since 2018, Trek Medics has been working with the government of Malawi and World Bank to implement the nation’s first emergency medical system and call center. Thanks to additional support from the Open Road AllianceVision Point Systems and Twilio, we were able to work with program partners to accomplish what we’d set out to do:

  • Set up a call center that would allow anyone in Malawi to call the 118 emergency number using any phone carrier
  • Train dispatchers to handle incoming calls to 118 and to alert and coordinate first responders using our Beacon dispatch platform
  • Train first responders to receive and reply to emergency alerts through both our Beacon mobile app and its SMS interface
  • Draft the country’s first-ever EMS operations manual

Today, the 118 call center is up and running, connecting the public to responders who are able to respond to emergencies along a 220-mile stretch of highway, now receiving hundreds of calls per day.

 
118 Call Center in Lilongwe, Malawi
 
 

To learn more about how we worked with program partners to implement and launch the call center, watch this video of our presentation with Vision Point Systems at the Twilio Signal conference in August 2019.

 
 
Beacon Logotype

Beacon emergency dispatch is a cloud-based, do-it-yourself platform for emergency services that alerts, coordinates and tracks prehospital personnel using any mobile phone, with or without internet.

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