SPEEDY SIRENS
BEST AMBULANCE SERVICE
WINNER: HelpNow, Mumbai
WHY IT WON: For providing safe 24x7 logistic help to Covid patients through their dedicated ambulances and reducing the average arrival time of an ambulance from 50 to 20 minutes
IN 2016, ADITYA MAKKAR’S FATHER SUFFERED A cardiac arrest and had to be rushed to the hospital. Unable to get an ambulance on time, the distressed family drove him to the hospital in their personal car. In 2019, Makkar co-founded HelpNow, an ambulance aggregator, along with Shikhar Agrawal and Venkatesh Amrutwar, his friends and fellow students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, so that no one else would go through what he and his family did.
HelpNow tied up with several ambulance providers to set up an ‘ambulance on call’ facility. They also launched a central call centre, which now receives around 500 calls daily. In April, when India was in the midst of the second wave of Covid-19, the number went up to around 2,000. HelpNow has provided medical assistance to close to 40,000 people since its launch and had transported 12,100 Covid patients till August.
Moreover, they have mounted fund-raising campaigns, as well as sanitisation and food donation drives in Dharavi, Mumbai. HelpNow also collaborated with hospitals and corporate firms to serve patients better. They also provide ambulances to those who cannot afford one.
With 350 ambulances in its fleet in Mumbai, HelpNow is the largest private ambulance provider in the city and has also extended its services to Pune, Delhi and Bengaluru. With regular check-ups conducted and safety protocol followed diligently, none of the HelpNow drivers or volunteers have lost their lives to the virus.