Emergency move: GPS to track ambulances – ET HealthWorld

By Noor Aiman

The State Government is now planning to install GPS for ambulances to track them and as well as deploy them on priority. During the first and second waves of covid, there were numerous complaints that ambulances were either unavailable or they were not reaching on time. Now, with proposed GPS, authorities can identify the location of the ambulance from the control rooms.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that GPS should be installed for 108 ambulances and a lane system should be brought in for swift movement of ambulances.

Explaining this, Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said, “If technologies like GPS, mobile apps are adopted then we can ensure that ambulances reach the patient within 10-15 minutes. The mapping of hospitals helps to identify the nearest available hospitals and also brings in transparency. Now it takes about 30-45 minutes for an ambulance to reach the patient in urban areas and in rural areas it is even more.” He said they were working to bring down the turnaround time to 10-15 minutes by using technology and also increasing the number of ambulances. At present there is one ambulance for one lakh population and the plan is to increase it to make one ambulance for every 45,000 to 50,000 population, he said. “We also provide training to drivers and paramedical staff to make the service more people-friendly.”

The Chief Minister also announced a separate authority for health services.

All the health services will be brought under a single authority in the coming days. Ambulances are not just patients’ transportation vehicles and instead should become emergency vehicles by responding to emergency calls by reaching the place within a few minutes of the call.

Earlier, the CM inaugurated the 120 Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances added under the Arogya Kavacha – 108 service in Bengaluru. Dr Sudhakar said that there were about 710 ambulances operating under the Arogya Kavacha – 108 scheme and 155 among them are ALS ambulances. The Arogya Kavacha which was introduced in 2008 by the then CM BS Yediyurappa and then Health Minister Sriramulu will be given a facelift, he said.