Now, ambulances in Odisha to reach patients in max 20 mins

Bhubaneswar: On average, more than 4,000 patients use 108-ambulance vehicles every day to shift to nearby government hospitals for treatment. However, with the addition of 349 new vehicles today, the ambulance service will now get expedited and the response time to reach a patient will be reduced from the previous 30 minutes to 20 minutes, a press release of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said.

The new ambulance vehicles were inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and were added to the existing fleet running under the Emergency Medical Ambulance Service (EMAS) of Odisha Government, in a ceremonial event organised today at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar. With this, the total number of 108-ambulance vehicles reached 1366, the CMO official communiqué mentioned.

Every life is precious and the fresh addition will now help save several lives, the CMO stated.

Notably, at least 279 vehicles will constitute a part of the 108-ambulance fleet and the remaining 70 will be provided to different government-run Medical College and Hospitals (MCHs) and District Headquarters Hospitals (DHHs), of which 30 are in the category of Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances and 40 others are in the category of Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulances.

The new 108-ambulances were purchased at a total cost of around Rs 148.45 crore.