<div>The Sri Lankan government has extended its sincere appreciation to India for setting up a countrywide free pre-hospital care ambulance service. </div>''<div><br />''</div>''<div>In a full page advertisement released in national dailies today, the government quoted Prime Minister  Narendra Modi announcing the expansion of the service to whole of the country during his visit to Sri Lanka in May last year. </div>''<div><br />''</div>''<div>The service, which is being implemented with a grant of 22.8 million US dollars from the Indian government, was launched by Mr Modi via video conferencing on Saturday in the presence of  Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. </div>''<div><br />''</div>''<div>The advertisement said, ambulance service has responded to more than six lakh emergency calls and over 84,000 patients have been attended at an average response time of 12.58 minutes.</div>''<div><br />''</div>''<div>Sri Lanka lacked an emergency ambulance service till it was proposed by Mr Modi during his first visit to Sri Lanka in May 2015.</div>''<div><br />''</div>''<div>The Sri Lankan Prime Minister while signing MOU for the countrywide expansion had said, this is a good example of the Indian success story being transferred to Sri Lanka.</div>