108- National Ambulance Service in Himachal Pradesh saves one life every one and a half hour and responds to 381 emergencies per day on an average.

Data shared by GVK EMRI, the service provider for the 108 emergency ambulance service in PPP( Public-Private Partnership) mode with the state government for nine years in the hill state, reveals that one ambulance is dispatched every 4^th minute to address the emergency. One baby is born with the assistance of Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) based in the ambulance every seventh hour.

The free of cost 24X7 emergency ambulance service started in HP under National Health Mission, Himachal Pradesh on 25 December 2010 with a fleet of 50 ambulances and 250 employees. It has now grown to 200 ambulances and around 1000 employees across the state.

The Emergency Response Centre of 108 service is at Dharampur in Solan district. As per data, the National Ambulance Service received 13,04,047 emergencies in Himachal Pradesh in nine years, out of which 12,65,630 were medical related emergencies, 30,654 were exclusive Police related emergencies and 7,763 were fire related emergencies.

The officials with GVK EMRI in Himachal share that 108 ambulance service has proved to be a boon in pregnancy related emergencies and in Road Traffic Accident (RTA) related emergencies.

As many as 2,60,596 pregnancy related emergencies were reported at 108 Emergency Response Centre and 10,949 successful deliveries conducted with the assistance of EMTs in the ambulance as well as at scene in nine years. As also, 71,620 persons, who met with Road Traffic Accidents, were rescued and admitted safely after providing Pre Hospital Care in various hospitals in the state in this period.

“A total of 1,20,550 (till Sep’ 2019) number of precious human lives have been saved so far in the state by providing apt Pre Hospital Care which has become possible through repeated skilling and training of EMTs in collabration with institutes of international repute such as Stanford School of Medicine,USA; 911 – National Emergency Number Authority and American Heart Association among others,” said Mehul Sukumaran, State Head, GVK EMRI in Himachal Pradesh.

He said every call received by 108 Emergency Response Centre is treated with the urgency of a life threatening emergency.

The data reveals that 108 Emergency Response Centre at Dharampur on an average receives 2418 calls per day out of which 98 % are responded within four seconds. The Emergency Response Officer (ERO) collects the information and arranges for an ambulance to be sent to the site of Emergency at the earliest through use of latest technology and Google map assignment.

The entire process of assigning of the ambulance is completed within a span of 89 seconds. More so, despite difficult terrain and scattered as well as sparsely populated areas in HP, the service takes average response time of a 13 minutes and 56 seconds in urban areas and 38 minutes and 19 seconds in the rural areas.