Hyderabad: '108' service throwing lifeline to Coronavirus cases

Hyderabad: The 108 emergency ambulances have been the go-to vehicles for the health department to ferry Covid-19 suspicious as well as positive cases for the last 50 days in Telangana. Nearly 5,700 persons have been shifted to Gandhi and other hospitals in the state during the period. More than one-fourth of the total fleet of ambulances in Telangana (333 vehicles) are on Covid-19 duties at present.

While 30 ambulances are deployed in GHMC limits alone, as many as 62 are being utilised to shift positive cases from various districts of the state to Gandhi, which is the designated Covid-19 treatment hospital in the state.

GVK EMRI Chief Operating Officer (COO) P Brahmananda Rao stated that they started Covid-19 operations from February 22 with four ambulances stationed at Shamshabad airport to shift foreign returnees with related symptoms to Gandhi and Fever hospitals. "Now, we are running 92 ambulances on Covid-19 duties shifting nearly 200 to 250 persons per day to hospital," he informed.

Come handy for pregnant women

During the lockdown period, when there is a restriction on movement of private vehicles, the '108' service is attending to more calls to shift pregnant women due for delivery. The emergency service is getting more than 40 to 50 per cent of calls for shifting pregnant women to hospitals, as against 15 to 20 per cent during normal days.

Elaborating on this, Brahmananda Rao said that nearly 500 of out of a total of 1100 trips are being used to ferry expecting mothers to hospitals. This trend is likely to continue until the end of lockdown period. It is observed that families in districts are depending on the emergency service more than those in the state capital, he added.

Fall in accident-related calls

On normal days, 22 per cent of trips by the '108' ambulances pertains to shifting of people who sustain injuries in road accidents in Telangana. However, due to lockdown, this figure has fallen to 4 per cent and even zero on some days. "The calls that we get now are about those whose bikes have skidded or those who fell down while avoiding cops or essential goods vehicles losing control due to overloading and meeting accidents," Rao said.