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| JK to get 25 critical care ambulances within month | | '3 to be available next week' | | Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Aug 13: As the state continues to have only two critical care ambulances, one in the CM's cavalcade and the other for the Governor of the state, the government Saturday said that 25 critical care ambulances (CCAs) will be made available within a month and that three of them will be handed over to the health department next week.
One of the top officials in the health department wishing anonymity told Early Times that the expert committee has approved these ambulances after visiting InstruMedics Company at New Delhi which has been given go-ahead by the government for the manufacture of 25 CCAs. "I would like to tell you that the final delivery of all 25 ambulances will be made available in the state within a month and three of them will be delivered in the next week," he said.
The official maintained that purchase cost of one ambulance is Rs 27 lakh and all of them have transport ventilator (portable), monitor defibrillator, oxygen system, autoloader-collapsible stretcher, scoop stretcher, spine board with straps and head blocks, wheelchair, syringe pump, nebulizer machine, suction system, pulse oxymeter, glucometer and cool and warm boxes for medicines and blood. "These ambulances fall in 'advanced life support' category where the critical patient can be taken to a hospital in emergency or referred to outside state," said the official.
Sources said that the purchase of the CCAs had been stuck in various controversies over the years due to the Health Department's inability to rope in parties for tendering process. "The purchase of CCAs has been lingering on for the last almost eight years due to various reasons, but soon after the chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti took over the reins of the state, she directed the health department to make these CCA's available as soon as possible," said one of the officials of the government.
The officials in the health department said that once they will get these Ambulances, these will be immediately distributed to all the districts.
Dr Yashpal Sharma, Managing Director, Medical Supplies Corporation confirmed the development and said that within a month all these CCAs will be available in the state. "Earlier requisition was for 22 ambulances for all the districts of the state, but three more were added to attend to various emergencies," Sharma maintained. Notably the PDP- BJP government had given a nod for Medical Supplies Corporation (MSC) for the purchase of 25 CCAs. It is pertinent to mention here that the state is in dire need of critical care government ambulance service since it doesn't have a fully functional medical emergency ambulance system. "Every day the Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing an increase in the number of accidents, violent incidents and medical emergencies. But the ambulances in the state are make-shift vans and are often extend a nightmarish experience to the critical patients rather than providing them a safe journey to hospitals in case of emergency," one of the senior doctors said.
He said that Lack of the specialized vehicles fitted with life support systems is responsible for patients losing on 'the golden hour', the time that could mean the difference between life and death, in transportation to a healthcare facility. Other doctors at various hospitals of the state said that it is common for them to receive patients in morbid conditions because they had taken a long time to reach the hospital without any medical support. "It is very easily said that the person on way to hospital succumbed but in reality it can be translated into patient not getting proper medical care in time," one of the doctor of SMHS said, adding that it is the critical care ambulances that can support a critical patients. It is pertinent to mention here that in the last government, the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had promised to put 50 ambulances fitted with Basic Life Support System after every 30 kms in the state.
He had also promised launched the ambulance helpline 102 and 108 which have still not taken off in the state. |
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