New ambulance fleet to be launched in July

The Delhi government will launch its new fleet of 110 ambulances in July. The new fleet will be in addition to the existing 151-fleet of Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) ambulances currently operating in Delhi.

“The new fleet is most likely to be launched in the first week of July. The ambulances have been procured. The new vehicles will be better equipped to tackle emergency cases with more sophisticated equipment. The state of the art ambulances will help ferry critical patients safely,” said a senior official, Health Department.

Currently, of the 151 vehicles, around 20 vehicles are equipped with advanced life support system, 10 with basic life support system. The remaining are patient transport ambulances.

The government’s new control room in Laxmi Nagar is also ready, added the official. “The new fleet will be inaugurated by the Chief Minister on the scheduled date,” he said.

The services have been outsourced to WIPRO and the Health Department is aiming to handle at least 5,000 calls daily.

The current CATS services remain less utilised with the staff attending around 500 calls every day. With only 12-15 staff, the control room cannot handle more than 500 calls.

The centralised control room will have mobile application-based system which will locate the area the patient is calling from. The GPS system will map the nearest ambulance available.

According to the plan of the health department, the hospital will be sent a notification depending on where the patient will be taken for treatment.

“The new system will ensure home to hospital care and will also put an end to situations where patients are refused treatment at hospitals due to non-availability of beds,” said the official.

The department is also boosting the number of its paramedics so that the entire fleet of ambulances is utilised. The number of total staff is likely to go up to 800, according to department officials.