By Joao Sousa M / NHT
Panaji, Jul 13: Goa is among the top three states in the country to attend to all medical emergencies, just behind the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat even as nearly 5,000 lives have been saved in road accidents and in other emergencies during the last two years.
The senior operations manager of Emergency Management Research Institute (EMRI), Mr Sandeep Sharma said ever since the 108 emergency service was launched in the state on September 2, 2008, they have received 56,450 calls with an average of around 100 medical emergency calls a day.
He said at present GVK has 18 ambulances across the state with each ambulance catering to an average population of 74,000-75,000 as against the national average of around one lakh population. Mr Sharma further stated that they are in the process of purchasing another four ambulances which are expected by August this year, which will bring down the average of each ambulance thus catering to a population of 50,000.
He said that the average response time is around 20 minutes after receiving the call, however, sometimes there could be delay as the ambulances could be busy with other patients or busy attending another call. He said in this case the callers are informed that there could be a possible delay.
Sharma further said that Goa is the first state in the country where they have started five emergency rooms situated at Chicalim, Candolim, Canacona, Curchorem and Sanquelim where the patients are stabilised before being taken for further treatment and the rooms are equipped with a doctor besides having other facilities.
He said that Goa is a model state for emergency services as the roads are better, distance is relatively shorter and the roads are not congested with traffic. He further stated that EMRI has tied up with the Army, fire services, etc to impart training besides having future plans of sensitising the people on emergency services in association with the Goa Police.
Sharma said that in the first four months after the service was launched the EMRI received 63,937 calls of which there were 11,353 emergency calls while 6,914 calls were attended to, while in 2009 they received a total of 1,95,211 calls of which 41,398 calls were emergency calls of which they could attend to 32,223 calls.
He further said that in the current year the EMRI has so far received 93,239 calls of which 21,077 calls were emergency calls of which 16,339 calls were attended to. He said though the number of calls is relatively high, there are lot of calls for inquiries about the services. He said that the EMRI attends to around 2,600 emergency calls monthly and added that in July they had already attended to 974 calls.