A three kilometre trip that usually lasts 15 minutes in a speeding ambulance on crowded old city roads, took half-hour longer on Friday, jeopardising the life of a 55-year-old tuberculosis patient.
The 108 ambulance operating in Charminar was tasked to ferry an unconscious man to Area Hospital in Malakpet at 6. 30 p.m.
The ambulance driver was able to collect the patient within minutes of receiving the call; the commute to the hospital took 50 minutes.
Ambulance operators across the city narrate similar harrowing experiences from this week, exposing the need for urgent road repairs and better traffic management following spells of heavy showers.
Hyderabad received over 100 mm of rain this week and witnessed multiple instances of traffic slowdown due to water-logging and broken roads that severely hit ambulance services.
“On Friday, it took us three hours from L.B. Nagar to NIMS Hospital when it usually takes an hour. But last week, it took us six hours to Gandhi Hospital,” said Agela Bhikshamaih, a private ambulance operator in the city. He said his drivers were lucky as none of them were ferrying patients in need of urgent medical help.
In case of critical emergencies including heart failure and stroke, minutes matter. EMRI that operates the state’s largest fleet of ambulances has realized its average response time increased by about four minutes in GHMC from the usual 25 minutes.
“Thankfully, we did not have any emergencies to cater to yesterday. Only patients had to be ferried for outpatient consultation,” a representative of Apollo Emergency Center said adding that most patients did not arrive at appointed time for consultation.
Published - September 18, 2016 12:00 am IST
