In an order to provide timely medical help to accident victims the regional transport authority (RTA) of Gurugram has claimed that the authority in collaboration with the health department and the traffic police have reduced an earlier response time from 18 minutes in November in 2020 to 12 minutes in February this year so far.

Medical experts said that the first hour after the mishap is considered the golden hour, and a delay of a few minutes could claim the victim’s life. In several cases, the victims died due to excessive bleeding and lack of timely medical help.

RTA officials said that they had analysed data for the month of November 2020 and it found that it takes 18 minutes on average for a road accident victim to get medical aid. RTA officials say that since February this time has been reduced to 12 minutes.

“We have asked the chief medical officer (CMO) Gurugram, Virender Yadav to coordinate with the private health facilities in the city and work out an arrangement under which the private hospital nearest to the accident site can send their ambulance. This practice will surely cut down the response time and will help in saving valuable lives,” said Gurugram RTA secretary, Dhaarna Yadav.

Gurugram has a large number of private hospitals and these are located in almost every corner of the district. All these private hospitals along with private ambulance operators together own around 500 ambulances in Gurugram.

Therefore, the nearest private hospital is in the best position to provide timely medical help to road mishap victims, said RTA officials.

Yadav informed that in many cases, commuters take accident victims to the nearest private hospital on their own, but private hospitals do not keep records of such instances.

“Private hospitals should alert the health department officials after admitting any accident victim. At present, they are only informing police,” said Yadav, adding that she has asked health officials to prepare records of the time

lapse between road accidents and death of victims and find out ways to reduce response time.

The RTA official revealed that, in 2021 around 55 people lost their lives in road accidents in the city while in 2020 around 380 people had died in accidents.

According to data shared by the police, in 2019 around 433 people had died in road mishaps.

Apart from this, in 2018 a number of 446 deaths were reported in Gurugram. In 2017 the number of fatalities stood at 415 in 2016 around 435 death cases were reported and in 2015 at least 400 people lost their lives on the multiple stretches of the district.