Even almost two years after its launch, poor mobile phone and road connectivity remains the biggest challenge in front of ‘108 Sanjeevani Express’ to deal with emergencies.
Many a time while attending to patients in rural or Naxal-infested areas, the 108 staff cannot even contact senior doctors over phone for advice because of poor communication network connectivity in many parts of the State. “We find it extremely difficult to communicate with the 108 Ambulance service driver when the vehicle is in rural areas. Villagers often complain that they could not contact us because of poor connectivity,” said 108 Sanjeevani Express Public Private Partnership (PPP) Officer Shibu Kumar.
Poor condition of roads, especially in interior areas, is another hindrance in providing quick relief to patients. “There have been incidents when our staff had to walk for 3 to 5 km with a stretcher to reach to the patient,” told Kumar to The Pioneer. The ‘108 Sanjeevani Express’ has attended to nearly 20,460 patients, including cases pertaining to fire accidents between January to November this year in Raipur district. At present, there are only 17 Sanjeevani vehicles in the district for a population of over 40 lakh (according to 2011 census).
However, there are no expansion plans for this year. “Several hospital ambulances are present to share our load. We have enough number of vehicles as of now and no expansion plans are on the cards,” Kumar said.The Emergency service received calls for most number of accidental and pregnancy related cases from January to November this year in Raipur district. The Service claims an average response time of 16 minutes to cater to patients in urban areas while 29 minutes to reach patients in rural areas in the district.
Fake calls
Response officers at 108 Call Centre are provided training so that they can differentiate fake calls from genuine ones. They ask a certain set of questions to the caller and judge them by their response. Incoherence, hesitation and long pauses give away the fake callers.