ALAPPUZHA: The road accident victims will get the services of ‘108 ambulances’ in all the 14 districts in the state soon. The ‘Dial 108’ emergency ambulance service introduced in 2011 was so far limited to Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha districts.
The new service with a total of 350 vehicles having essential life supporting equipment will be available in every 30-km stretch of national highways within a month, said Dr Dileep Kumar, general manager, Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL), the implementing agency.
The government has spent Rs 500 crore for the scheme, including trauma care project, aimed at curbing the increasing cases of accident deaths.
A private company, ‘GVK EMRI,’ has been given the contract to appoint emplo-yees and procure the required vehicles. The number of ambulances to be allocated to each district will vary according to its demographic differences and population index.
An official with KMSCL said the number of road accident deaths was rising in the state. According to the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), at least 11 people die in road accidents every day.
Only essential life-supporting equipment will be installed in the new vehicles as there is no need for all the sophisticated instruments like ventilator and electrocardiogram. At least half- an-hour is needed to get the results of many tests conducted in the running ambulance. Within that time, the patient can be brought to the hospital. The results from these machines are often inaccurate due to the disruption in the running vehicle, the official said.
As of now, the 108 ambulances are equipped with ICU, ventilator, oxygen cylinders, automatic trolleys, stretchers etc. All these ambulances will be replaced with brand new ones. Though 25 ambulances were allotted to Alappuzha district, the service had gone down to 13 in the last eight years.
