MISERABLE CONDITION OF AMBULANCE SERVICES IN DELHI

Delhi is national capital city of India and our govt projects it as a world class city but a recent RTI reply states that the city has not even basic ambulance facilities available which costs the life of innocent poor of the city. The Ambulance service in city is run  by CATS a society constituted by Govt of NCT of Delhi. It is surprising that the ambulance with advance life support run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and that also on only on working days only . Delhi Govt purchased 21 Advance ambulances at the time of commonwealth Games in this city but the same has not been maintained. 14 out of 21 ambulances are linked with hospitals which is used only for the purpose of shifting the patient and remaining 7 with CATS are neither maintained properly nor well equipped as the most of the life saving equipments are not in working conditions due to poor maintenance.There is such a situation where if you call for an ambulance after 4 P.M at emergency ambulance services number 102 the reply is very funny that you can get an ambulance after 8 a.m. next day.

      The reply provided by state health department reveals various disappointing facts that there is no technician appointed for ambulances to operate highly sophisticated life saving equipments. In the name of manpower the ambulances as Assistant Ambulance Office which is nothing but medical nomenclature of  Driver who is being given a training for two weeks about the first aid. As per norms various life saving medicines should be available in ALS ambulances but now the main question is whether a driver will prescribe the medicine for patient as it is admitted facts that the CATS ambulance service has neither any doctor nor nurse on their roll.
      The situation is worst in Govt hospitals where most of the hospitals are functioning without an ambulance and none of the hospital has advance category of ambulance except some provided by CATS. our city govt. can spend billions on the flyover as that is visible to the people and appreciated by media and upper middle class for smooth running of their foreign cars but if some poor dies daily due to non availability of the essential ambulance services then it does not matter for our govt as they know that the person already died will not return to make hue and cry.
       The situation in private sector is also worst where some of the big hospitals charging up to 3000 Rs per K.M. other ambulance services are nothing but a taxi service having long bench type of seats. In our city private  ambulances are registered and monitored by transport department. At the time of registration you have to hire some equipment whether working or not to show the committee constituted by health department headed by a deputy secretary and register the same with transport department for five years. Now you can return the hired equipments and easily can play with the life of the citizens as after registration only enforcement team of transport department is agency to check the ambulances.