Date:27/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/27/stories/2008082757530100.htm

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Call 108 for all emergencies

R. Sujatha

CHENNAI: By mid-September, the city will have more ambulances reducing the response time during an emergency or an accident.

This follows an initiative taken by the State government to rope in a private emergency care provider. A call, made from any part of the State for help in hours of medical, police and fire emergencies to the toll-free number 108, provided by Emergency Management Research Institute (EMRI), will ensure that an ambulance arrives without delay.

The government signed an MoU with the Hyderabad-based institute on May 7 and donated 198 ambulances to the EMRI, which would be refurbished with amenities such as additional stretchers, oxygen cylinders, and rescue and cutting tools. The ambulances are equipped with GPS and GIS systems so as to allow the monitoring staff at the EMRI centre to locate them. A fourth of the 400 ambulances, which would be put on road by the end of the first year of setting up operations, would be equipped with advanced life-saving equipment and medicines. The rest would have basic amenities, said EMRI chief executive officer Venkat Changavalli.

At the centre established in Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital, Triplicane, calls would be monitored and directed to the respective government agency. The nearest ambulance would be alerted to pick up the patient and send him to the nearest hospital. Once stabilised, the patient could choose to be transferred to a hospital of his or her choice.