The article is written by Dr. Anupam Borgohain, HoD- Accident & Emergency, GNRC Medical, North Guwahati.
Emergency Medical Services: A Guide from GNRC Hospitals
Lifesaving Care Anytime, Anywhere with GNRC Ambulance Service. Dial 18003450011
Emergency Medical Services, more commonly known as EMS or Pre-Hospital Care is a service that provides out-of-hospital ‘Acute Medical Care ’ to patients with acute illnesses and injuries and also transports the patients to definitive care facilities.
April 2005 was the turning point for Emergency Medical Services in India. An organization was incepted in the then state of Andhra Pradesh, as GVK EMRI, with the objective of delivering comprehensive, speedy, reliable, and quality Emergency Care Services in an organized way. This has been done by establishing an Emergency Response System that coordinates every emergency through a single toll-free number ‘108’ which, when called in an emergency ensures prompt communication and activation of a response that includes, assessment of the emergency, dispatch of the ambulances, along with a well-trained Emergency Medical Technician to render quality pre-hospital care and transport of the patient to the appropriate health care facility. Today, 108 is synonymous with the best-in-class emergency service and has been acknowledged as the most efficient, speedy, reliable, and caring service provider in its category. Before this, there was no EMS in an organized way ever existed in India.
According to WHO standards, one ambulance is required for every 100,000 of the population in plains and for hilly and tribal areas one ambulance for every 70,000 population. However, in India, we have only 25,851 ambulances for a population of 130 crore across the country according to the latest statement by MoS for Health. This is way behind the WHO standard.
In the state of Assam, GVK EMRI started its operation in an organized way in the month of November 2008 under Public Private Partnership with the Govt. of Assam. Now they have a fleet of 795 ambulances including Basic & Advanced Life Support and Boat Ambulances across the state.
Though, there is no accurate official data available about the total number of ambulances in Assam in unorganized sector; unofficially the number is just over 1000. These ambulances are basically a patient transport vehicle that run without trained Paramedics and there is no provision of pre-hospital care.
Role of GNRC Hospitals in Pre-Hospital Care:
Adopting, almost the same process and protocol as GVK EMRI, GNRC Hospitals Ltd. started its EMS on 14th June 2015 as GNRC EMS with a fleet size of 30 ambulances to serve the people of Assam and also in an effort to bridge the gap of shortcomings of the EMS, to some extent. This is first of its kind in the state of Assam for a Private Sector Hospital to operate EMS in an organized way for the people, free of cost. Today, the GNRC EMS has a fleet size of 51 ambulances, both Basic (42) and Advanced Life Support (9) operating across the state providing free Pre-Hospital Care and Transport of all kinds of emergency patients. This is the largest fleet of ambulances for any Private sector hospital in the entire North East India. The target is to have a fleet size of 100 ambulances.
GNRC EMS is manned by Trained and Certified Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) capable of providing timely and quality Pre-hospital Care under the supervision of an Emergency Physician stationed at the Emergency Response Centre (Call Centre, wherein calls from periphery land). Anyone can avail 24x7 Emergency Ambulance service in Guwahati, Assam also the best Medical Emergency treatment with the help of GNRC EMS at the time of emergency by simply dialing a toll-free number- ‘18003450011’. This makes the GNRC EMS unique and different from other competitors of unorganized sector ambulance service providers and also the most sought-after EMS in the state. On an average GNRC EMS serves 50 emergencies and 12 lives saved per day. Since its inception, GNRC EMS transported 38,132 and able to save 32,080 lives till April 2024.
