The Referral Transport Service of Haryana Government will now help children up to the age of five years. Earlier, the service was only given to newborns till 30 days of birth.
Besides, the State Government would soon purchase 50 new ambulances.Haryana Health Minister, Rao Narender Singh said that the services being provided through Haryana Referral Transport Service (no.102) is mainly linked with health programmes of mother and child.At present, the ambulance service is being provided free of cost to pregnant women, road accident victims, freedom fighters, BPl and patients of notified settlements and post partum delivery cases up to six weeks and newborns. Now, the scope of the service has been extended by including children up to five years of age with an aim to reduce child mortality.
In Haryana, the Infant Mortality Rate is 48 on 1000 children, for which a reduced target of 32 has been fixed by the year 2017.The Minister said that according to a study conducted by PGIMER, Chandigarh, it was found that the main reason for the increase in institutional deliveries in Haryana is Referral Transport service.Singh said that in Haryana major emphasis is being laid on extending better health services to mother and child. With a view to safely drop mother and child post delivery at their home, a transport service namely Kilkaari has also been initiated. Sub-District Hospitals and Community Health Centres have been provided with one ambulance each whereas two Primary Health Centres have been provided with the facility of one ambulance.
Besides, round the clock control room has been set up at each District Hospital where operators attend to all phone calls related to transport services. It also monitors ambulance and through daily reporting software, its report is also sent to state headquarters.So far, over 15 lakh people have been benefitted by the service. Of which over 5.71 lakh were pregnant women, 75,028 were road accident victims, 3,27,388 were referral cases from one institution to other and 1,30,684 were emergency cases.