Chandigarh, September 26: Taking a serious note of audio clips shared on social media which showed the negligence of employees to provide ambulance on an emergency call, Minister for Health & Family Welfare Balbir Singh Sidhu issued the orders to suspend 2 Emergency Response Officers and 1 Cluster Leader for dereliction of duty.
The Minister said that it was brought to his notice that someone had made the call at Dial 108 ambulance and asked to provide the ambulance to take a patient injured in an accident to the district hospital for further treatment. He said instead of providing ambulance to the hospital, Emergency Response Officers (ERO) repeatedly asked for IPR and refer number from the caller and staff of the hospital.
Even after the details were provided by the staff, they refused to provide the services. He said that after going through the details of the incident, he immediately suspended the 2 EROs & 1 Cluster Leader deputed in headquarter of Dial 108 Ambulance at Amritsar and further investigation is under process.
Balbir Singh Sidhu further said that he had also given the directions to the Director, Punjab Health System Corporation to change protocol in which priority must be given to emergency cases such as road side trauma, neonatal paediatric emergency, maternal emergency, etc. He said the government was providing Emergency Response Services free of cost to all the citizens in the state and it should reach each and every needy.
He added that instructions had already been issued to authorities to make sure that ambulance services in emergency cases reach the place within 20 minutes in urban areas and within 30 minutes in rural areas. He said ambulances were being monitored through GPRS for deployment to the site. He said the Control Station consisting of Data Centre and Call Centre had also been set up in Amritsar. Presently, there are 242 ambulances in the state.
The Minister said services of ambulances are provided 24 hours through Emergency Response Centre in three shifts. Services of the ambulances can be availed from anywhere in the State of Punjab by dialling 108 from Landline or Mobile phone. He said that these Ambulances shift the trauma cases and other emergency patients in the designated earmarked health institutions.
