EMRI to induct GPS based ambulance tracking system by year

By PRABEER SIKDAR

DEHRADUN, 15 May 2009: EMRI Uttarakhand, which has completed one year of its operation in the state, is working to connect its entire fleet of ambulances with Global Positioning System (GPS) based Ambulance Vehicle Location Tracker (AVLT) by the end of 2009.

According to Anoop Nautiyal, EMRI Chief Operating Officer (Uttarakhand), once implemented in the state, the technology will be the first to be adopted by any EMRI centre in the country. “Under this system, we would digitalise all the approach roads in the states. Once the caller puts a call to our centralised call centre in Doon, the system would automatically show the nearest available ambulance from the place of the caller,” explained Nautiyal.

Among others, the system is also expected to help in improving the response time of Emergency Medical Staff and also save wastage of fuel. Presently, EMRI has a fleet of 90 ambulances in all the 13 Districts of the state.

Commenting on the performance of EMRI, which completed one year today, Nautiyal pointed out honesty, integrity and transparency as its success mantra. “We attribute our success to the team work put in by EMRI’s entire 650 staff,” he said, adding that EMRI has tied up with 290 Hospitals (including 106 private) in the state.

Problems

Speaking to Garhwal Post, Nautiyal blamed poor communication facility in 17 locations in the state. “Out of the 90 locations we are in, 17 do not have any telephone network,” he said, while acknowledging that it was depriving people of Emergency Services in these areas.

Surprisingly, out of the 17 locations, where EMRI staff has been facing connectivity problems, 10 locations fall in Pauri, the home district of both the Health Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and the Chief Minister BC Khanduri.

The 10 affected locations in Pauri were Mori, Pabo, Bironkhal, Thalisain, Chandakot, Pokhra, Kaljikhal, Lansdowne, Riknikhal, Dhagu and Nainidanda. The other seven locations facing connectivity problems include one in Uttarakashi (Mori), one in Almora (Salt), Chamoli (Gairsain), two each in Pithoragarh and Rudraprayag.

Disclosing EMRI’s challenging nature of work, he acknowledged absence of road heads as a major concern.

“In some villages, the nearest road head was as far as 30 kms away,” he rued.

“80 percent of the villages in Uttarakhand have an average population of about 500 each. The irony is that most of them are sparsely located, and in many of them, it is not even feasible to lay permanent roads,” he added, while emphasising that there was scope for improving the overall road infrastructure in the state.

He also underscored the need for improving the existing health infrastructure in the state. “Right now, the demand for health services in the state is more than its capability to supply. Moreover, PHCs and CHCs also need to be augmented.”

Statistics

During its one year operation (15 May, 2008 – 14 May, 2009), EMRI attended 53948 patients. Of these, pregnancy cases topped the charts with 18434 cases (34 p.c.) followed by 8885 Road Traffic Accidents (16 p.c.).

According to Nautiyal, apart from inadequate road infrastructure in some places, alcohol influenced driving and driving without helmets were the major causes of accidental injuries. “Most of the victims were two-wheeler riders, who were most often under the influence of alcohol and without any protective headgear,” Nautiyal told Garhwal Post, adding that most accidents occurred in places like Haridwar, Kashipur, Dehradun, Haldwani and Rudrapur.

Significantly, the State Health Department had proposed to establish Trauma Centres in some select places, which till date, have not materialised.

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