In order to provide emergency services to Mumbaikars, the state will hand over 70 ambulances to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) this month.
As reported in dna on March 2, the vehicles will be deployed in city as part of state government's 24x7 emergency medical services project under the National Rural Health Mission. According to the mission, the ambulance service will be made available to needy/victims on the helpline number 108.
"The BMC will get ambulances to run the scheme through a government-appointed agency within the next two to three months. We, being the local governing agencies, will give infrastructural support to the agencies providing the service for government," a senior civic official said.
The BMC has identified 70 locations, which are in the periphery of 4-6km from government/civic hospitals in city, spread over an area of 436sqkm. The locations won't necessarily be accident-prone areas though, officials informed. "We are stationing the vehicles in a way that a patient can be moved to a hospital in 20 minutes," the official added.
The service will be provided in two shifts. In each shift, a doctor and driver will be deployed. "The staffers will be instructed to communicate with BMC's disaster management cell in case of any untoward incident. The cell, in turn, will communicate with the nearest hospital. This will alert staff at hospitals concerned," the official said.
The BMC said it is in talks with the railway authorities to identify spots where ambulances can be stationed on their premises. "We expect full cooperation from the authorities as we often hear about accidents along railway tracks," a civic official said.
Mumbai-based firm BVG and UK-based company UKSAS will operate the fleet of ambulances along with a call centre to facilitate the services. A total of 937 ambulances will function across Maharashtra, of which 233 will be advanced life support vehicles and 704 basic life support vehicles.
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