8 months after affidavit in HC, UT yet to bring ambulances

Tall claims of the UT health department to provide sophisticated ambulances in the city to save the patients without wasting the “golden hour” have fallen flat as even after eight months of filing the affidavit in this regard in the High Court, there is no sight of the ambulances.

Also, the UT health department is yet to launch a dedicated emergency services ambulances such as 108 which is being run successfully in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

It was in March this year that the UT health officials had submitted an affidavit in the court stating that to save patients within the golden hour, the health department will introduce one of the best EMRI pattern ambulance services in the city.

In fact, the health department officials had also studied the pattern of four states — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and West Bengal where the service had been operational successfully and could be availed by calling a dedicated number.

As per the affidavit, 10 such ambulances were to be launched in the city in a phased manner, firstly for Advanced Life Support (ALS) and for Basic Life Support (BLS) in the second phase. These were to be launched in addition to the existing ambulance service being provided by the Chandigarh administration.

“In phase one, there will be four ALS ambulances while three would be for BLS service. Phase two will have another three BLS ambulances in service,”

... contd.