Since 2014, 2.5L Nashik patients have taken dial 108 ambulances

Nashik: The ambulances of the ‘dial 108’ service have transported more than 2.5 lakh people with medical emergencies to hospitals in Nashik district in the past seven-and-a-half years.

The service was started in January 2014 to provide immediate transportation to people in medical need to hospitals.

Under this service, the Bharat Vikas Group (BVG), which operates the ambulances, has stationed 46 ambulances in different parts of the district. On getting calls from the patients or their relatives, these ambulances rush to the residence of the patients to pick them and take them to the nearest government medical facility.

Over the past seven-and-a-half years, over 2,700 pregnant women have delivered babies inside the ambulances on their way to hospitals.

Dr Ashwin Raghamwar, the zonal manager for Nashik, said, “At the time of joining, all the doctors on the ambulances are given special training in emergency treatment. They are well aware of what needs to be done during emergencies. The deliveries that took place in the ambulances are the cases where the call to the ambulance was made at the last moment.”

If the hospital is far, the doctors concerned park the ambulance by the roadside and carry out the delivery. Some parts of the district are extremely remote, therefore, it takes time to reach the hospital.

The 46 ambulances, over the past seven-and-a-half years — from January 2014 to June-end 2021 — have ferried 2.48 lakh patients, including 79,324 women in labour or in advanced stages of pregnancy and another 30,687 accident victims.

Raghamwar said they had devoted a specific number of ambulances to ferry Covid patients. From March last year to June 2021, as many as 21,836 suspected Covid patients were transferred by the ambulances.