BMC pins hope on government ambulances for city

Asia's richest civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), will now rely on the state government to provide ambulance services to patients in the city.

At least this is what the municipal administration has informed a corporator, while responding to a point of order she had raised during a standing committee meeting held on July 10.

This move, corporators feel, is set to cause inconvenience to citizens in future.

Shiv Sena's Kurla corporator and member of BMC's standing committee, Anuradha Pednekar, had taken up the issue while discussing shortage of ambulances at civic hospitals, as life span of several such vehicles is set to expire soon. According to the civic administration, life span of 31 of the 75 BMC-owned ambulances is about to expire soon. Pednekar sought to know what steps BMC has taken to ensure citizens/patients are not inconvenienced if and when there's a shortage of vehicles.

"We had invited tenders to purchase new ambulances to manage the number of vehicles in our fleet as some of the motors need to be put out of service. But the health department has informed the transport wing that there is no need to buy new vehicles given since the government has launched the 108 toll on call ambulance service," said Mohan Adtani, additional municipal commissioner (city), while replying to the point of order.

Pednekar, however, was not satisfied with the reply and insisted chairman of the standing committee, Yashodhar Phanase, has not given a ruling in this regard.

"The decision is yet to be made at the standing committee level. My concerns are about timely services to patients. The government has so far provided only 50 per cent of the ambulances promised for Mumbai. It is not an assuring situation. Hence, the BMC must purchase vehicles for its hospitals instead of depending on the government," the corporator reiterated.

The BMC ambulances make 136 services (trips) on an average to different hospitals daily.

As reported in dna on March 2, the vehicles will be deployed in city as part of the state government's 24X7 emergency medical services (EMS) project under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). According to the mission, the ambulance service will be made available to needy/victims on the helpline number 108.

The government had assured to make available 70 vehicles for the city.