The EMR at the dispensary was so far away from the platforms that all these days not a single injured railway passenger was brought to the EMR.
Almost three and a half months after Western Railway authorities opened an Emergency Medical Room (EMR), its dispensary at Mumbai Central far away from the suburban platforms, WR authorities on Monday decided to shift the EMR to a porta cabin closer to platform number one at the station. The EMR was opened at the dispensary on February 2 this year.
The EMR at the dispensary was so far away from the platforms that all these days not a single injured railway passenger was brought to the EMR. The usual practice, medical department officials said, was that the station master would call for doctors and paramedics at the EMR and the team would rush to the suburban platform to treat the patient.
"It was a situation where bringing an injured victim to this EMR would have taken just as much time as taking him to Nair hospital, which is a full-fledged hospital. What is the logic behind giving an injured railway commuter first-aid at this EMR and then send him to Nair for specialised treatment and waste precious time?" asked an official.
The new porta cabin EMR will have one drawback, however. Since it is situated on the western side of the station, taking patients to the private Jaslok hospital is easier than getting them to the BMC-run Nair hospital, which is on the eastern side.
The EMR was mandated by a Bombay High Court in November 2014 and both WR and Central Railways are to set up these rooms at bigger stations to ensure train accident victims get quick treatment at the station premises, before being taken to bigger hospitals nearby for further treatment.
According to documents pertaining to the EMR scheme on WR, the railways will spend around Rs31 lakh per month per EMR, which in turn comes to Rs1 lakh per day. Each EMR, as per WR guidelines, needs to have one Medical Council of India-recognised MBBS doctor, one nurse and one 10th-pass helper. The medical teams have to be at the EMR round-the-clock in eight-hour shifts, as per rules laid down by WR for the firms running these EMRs.
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