Emergency medical care unit soon
New Delhi/Mumbai The Maharashtra gover nment is set to roll out over 900 fully-equipped ambulances across the state to provide emergency care to accident and trauma victims in the critical initial moments, thanks to the persistent initiative of an Indian American urologist.
The State government announced in July that it will launch the Emergency Medical Services Project in September. The exact date is yet to be announced.
Noted Indian American urologist Navin Shah has been regularly meeting top state officials in Maharashtra over the years to persuade them about the importance of launching emergency medical services (EMS).
"Annually, Mumbai records 8,600 accident deaths, including 4,000 in railway accidents, 12,600 deaths due to heart attacks, 6,200 infant deaths and over 300,000 serious emergency patients," the Marylandbased expert, who is also former president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, told IANS from Washington.
The EMS would have 937 advanced and basic life sup- port ambulances operative across the state based on the principle of Golden Hour - wherein a patient is to be shifted within the first hour of an accident or incident to the nearest hospital, critical to save lives and health.
Shah, who visited India in late June, had led a delegation of US trauma surgeons to Mumbai to conduct a twoday seminar on "Trauma care, a US experience".
For the emergency medical service, the State government will procure 927 ambulances and create 47 trauma centres with a budget of Rs 1,000 crore ($200 million).
Two of the US trauma surgeons – TM Scalea, chief of the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center of Maryland University, and Amy Hildreth of the Wake Forest School of Medicine - have offered one scholarship each to two Maharashtra surgeons for a week's training at Maryland University.
According to Shah, State government officials conveyed to him their eagerness to ensure the Indo-US programme of training trauma surgeons is not a one-off thing.
The Maharashtra government has begun training police personnel in trauma care.