GAIA’s all-terrain ambulances are the backbone of our Mobile Health Clinic program. The rugged Toyota Land Cruisers are filled each morning with medicine, equipment and staff, traverse rutted and muddy roads to distant villages, and support primary care clinics serving thousands of patients each week. 

Because the vehicles are so vital, they are cared for assiduously with frequent servicing, allowing some to reach 15 years and hundreds of thousands of kilometers of use. They are also prized, often sporting names of past supporters like “Don”, “Charlie”, “Jocelyn”, “Michael”, and “Elizabeth”. 

So when it comes time to buy new vehicles – as GAIA is doing this month with two heading to our expansion in Nsanje District and a third replacing the original clinic vehicle from 2008 – GAIA staff are excited. The vehicles are not cheap: when including the $10,000 necessary for reconfiguring a Land Cruiser as an ambulance, they may cost upwards of $70,000. But our staff are relentless in finding the best deals. For example, before contacting the nearby dealership to negotiate, Joyce, our Country Director, instructed her staff to argue for the best deal, leave the dealership for two or three days to make them worried, return and plead poverty as a charitable NGO, and if necessary shed a tear. (This isn’t Joyce’s first rodeo.) Apparently her strategy worked: our current quotes are around $60,000, including the ambulance conversion and service and warranty agreements. Forward!

And as each new vehicle is deployed, it is remarkable what that service will represent. If all goes well over its lifespan, it will facilitate 3,000+ clinic days and 500,000 patient visits. Our medical staff are the heroes of this story, but their vehicles - including Don, Charlie, Michael, Jocelyn and Elizabeth - play an essential and valued supporting role.