Of the 45 ambulances parked outside Gandhi Hospital, not even one had a ramp to move invalid patients. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu

A few days ago, when a senior citizen fell ill at her home in the Khairatabad area, her son called up the hospital. The hospital didn’t have an ambulance and sent a third-party vehicle. The ambulance driver arrived with two aides. The gurney didn’t fit in the lift and the four men had to carry the patient down on a bedsheet. “Luckily, we stay on the first floor and she is frail. But the ambulance didn’t even have a ramp to wheel her in. It was traumatic and I was worried for her safety,” says the elderly patient’s son.  

“We have an ambulance with a ramp,” says the person handling calls at the government-run ‘108’ helpline. “But we don’t have an agreement with private hospitals to pick up patients,” informs the call centre executive. 

Lined up outside the Gandhi Hospital is a row of ambulances. The COVID-19 frenzy of wailing sirens and movement is gone. Instead, the ambulance drivers rush whenever they see a potential customer. 

“What is a ramp,” asks Raju, who monitors the movement of ambulances and allocates them to transport patients. “We put the patient on a wheelchair or stretcher, and transport. We don’t have ambulances with ramps. You have to call 108 for that,” he informs. Of the 45 ambulances parked on the road, not one of them has a ramp to move invalid patients.

Among the private ambulance operators, only two had the facility to wheel the patient into the vehicle. “We have one ambulance. The vehicle we purchased as an ambulance is a rudimentary one. We don’t have a culture of planning for emergencies,” says Mujtaba Askari of Helping Hands Foundation. 

One manufacturer offers ‘Autoloader Stretcher mounted through specially designed ramp’. How it can be used to smoothly transfer a patient from a fifth floor apartment to the vehicle is anybody’s guess. Another company’s specifications for an ambulance include torque, emission norms, suspension, wheelbase and battery. Not surprisingly, it is a modified vehicle with the seats removed to make space for a stretcher. 

While India is a country of the young, the United Nations expects the country’s population of 60+ citizens to reach 19.6% by 2050. 

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Printable version | Jun 15, 2022 1:07:06 pm | https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/ill-equipped-ambulances-make-patient-transport-a-nightmare/article65479547.ece