Ambulances In India Are Under Acute Pressure In An Already Ailing Healthcare System

As India moves closer to the 8-lakh COVID-19 cases mark, the faltering healthcare system stands exposed as the number of cases grow everyday. The pandemic has led to a steep rise in the demand of ambulances across the country, also exposing the shortage of services. The shortage of ambulances in the country is also putting the lives of patients at risk. In some cases, the patients never reach their destination on time. Ever since the lockdown was imposed and the country witnessed a steep rise in cases, the delay has resulted in loss of numerous lives.

Reuters

Many people have complained of no one answering the call when dialling the 108 ambulance helpline. Public hospitals are overwhelmed with more patients than they can handle, and many people have repeatedly highlighted how cities are running out of beds for COVID-19 patients who are in need of critical care. The shortfall in emergency services is not only restricted to urban areas.

The rural areas have seen a spike in the number of COVID cases after migrant workers travelled back to their native places. Back in May, the BMC converted 150 BEST buses and private buses into ambulances for COVID care centres and transportation of COVID patients after the administration received flak for making a 32-year-old pregnant women and her five-year-old daughter wait for more than 12 hours for an ambulance after they tested positive for COVID-19.

BCCL

Several cases of non-availability of ambulances In Bengaluru, a COVID-19 patient died by the roadside near his house while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. In yet another tragic case of ambulance unavailability, a COVID positive woman in her 50s had to wait for hours to reach the hospital. The woman was called by the authorities and told that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

According to an NDTV report, she was told on call to wait for an ambulance and that she would be taken to a government hospital. While she got the call at 1 PM, the ambulance came at 9 PM. The woman waited outside her house for close to eight hours for the ambulance to arrive, as her husband and son were quarantined inside. Back in May, a 65-year-old former All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) employee died on the road waiting for an ambulance for hours in New Delhi. While there was no ambulance, people on the road did not step in to help fearing the infection.

Many share a similar fate. The government, under its National Ambulance Service, runs close to 25,000 units in India. According to a report by Economic Times, private fleet owners (many of whom rely on 'aggregation model'), social and political organisations and NGOs operate over 10,000 ambulances ¨C taking the total pool of emergency wagons to just about 35,000. The shortage of ambulances is hurting the emergency care services and if the government does not intervene timely, the situation is set to worsen.