koustubbhargav Posted April 18, 2009 Report Posted April 18, 2009 By Abhimaan Kashyap Miryalguda: I almost slept while driving on the highway from Miryalguda to Hyderabad after attending the chief minister’s roadshow on Saturday. It was a long and tedious journey. Massive trucks, lorries and cars were zooming past. On the outskirts of Nakrekal, I was jolted awake by the crumpled remains of two cars which had crashed into each other. The accident had just happened and bystanders were extricating the passengers from the wreckage. I was surprised to find an 108 ambulance already on the scene, all revved up and ready to carry the victims to hospital. It could not have been more than 10 minutes since the accident happened. I was impressed. I thought it only happened in Hollywood movies. No wonder why the 108s are proving to be YSR’s biggest vote winners in this election. Records show that more than 40,000 lives have been saved across Andhra Pradesh since the launch of the 108 service on August 2, 2005. A sense of the popularity of the 108 has been evident at every meeting that YSR has addressed in Nalgonda, Achampet, Mahbubnagar, Miryalguda, Chevella and Vikarabad. He dramatizes his pitch about Arogyasree with his tooin, tooin, tooin mimicry of an ambulance. The crowd loves it. Says V Ramulu Goud of Achampet in Mahbubnagar district, “Earlier, we used to carry patients to hospital in trucks or taxis. 108s take us there in five or ten minutes. You don’t have to pay, and you don’t have to bribe anyone.” Parvatamma, a construction labourer of Mahbubnagar district, says that she made a desperate call to 108 when one of her family members had a heart attack. It was 3 am, but the blue van was at her home in 15 minutes. The 108 service is flooded with calls. Each day, the Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) receives about 13,000 phone calls across the state. In 2008-09, the 108 call centre handled over 22 million calls, 1.7 million of them emergency. Pregnancy-related emergencies topped the list with 22 per cent, followed by stomach aliments and abdominal pain with 17 per cent and accident trauma cases with 16 per cent. Cardiac cases accounted for 4 per cent. Equipped with ventilators, oxygen cylinders, suction pumps, cervical collars for immobilisation of the patient, drips and measuring instruments to measure the oxygen level in the blood, blood glucose, 108 makes a vital difference life and death. The ambulances have disposable syringes and anti-snake venom, and equipment to deal with emergencies like drowning and poisoning. The crew also has a digital camera to record photographic evidence in medico-legal cases. This evidence is passed on to the police. All calls to the crew and from them are recorded and made available in medico-legal cases to investigators and courts. Who would have thought that the ruling party will be carried to victory in an ambulance.
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