The other day, it was yet again the passive person in “me” sitting back and experiencing the chaos we’re everyday living with in urban India. It isn’t just me, but there are many like me, who do have objections about the way certain things work here, but yet, we end up doing nothing much about it…..

I was commuting, (or so, trying to commute!, for it had been 40 minutes since I was stuck up in a traffic muddle, trying hard to reach my destination on time). And just a short distance away, there was an ambulance, which was sounding emergency alarms, perhaps communicating hard to all travelers, to let it pass, for it was carrying an emergency patient inside. The alarm went on ringing for 25 long minutes. The whole world had as though come to a standstill. The traffic took well past half an hour to clear out. And in my mind began a series of questions and black out; for answers I had none. That moment I strongly felt that every building in this damn city of ours must have a helipad to airlift ailing patients. It was a weird thought, agreed, but then at least it would give the helpless patients some speedy hopes of reaching the doctors on time! Well, humor aside, but thinking through this pressing issue, one really ends up groping in the dark for answers…..

Paving way from the hysterical endless traffic, this vehicle, with its beeping loud sounds, and alarms, maneuvers and makes itself some space to reach its destination, and mind just freezes to ask one inevitable question- “Could the ambulance be reaching the hospital on time?” “Would the patient be getting timely medical attention?” With traffic levels elevating, combustion and clogging rising like the mercury levels in our cities, I just wonder and then I’m compelled to make a statement “Relevance of an ambulance”.

How relevant is an ambulance really? It isn’t the design or the very existence of this vehicle that I’m pondering about. It’s the role and the functionality of this vehicle that makes me rethink.

Relevance of an ambulance isn’t meant to question the presence of an important and key apparatus called “ambulance” per se, but is more hinted at pointing out the ever burgeoning and outstretching traffic chaos in our cities and towns due to which one stops for a while with a question mark – “What’s the relevance of an Ambulance, which is meant to carry a serious patient to a hospital for quick emergency medical attention and treatment?”  “What if the ambulance isn’t able to reach the hospital due to some inevitable traffic jam, which is so very commonplace in urban India?” “Who is to blame?”

The most idealist solution would be to build homes in vicinities of hospitals! But then, Idealism isn’t Practicality. So then what? The speed factor and the “urgency” element hidden in the word ambulance, its meaning and significance itself gets lost if the patient isn’t able to reach for his treatment on time. What if the patient has experienced a cardiac arrest and is travelling endlessly in the ambulance, just to reach the hospital? What if a woman goes into labour and is driven for 45 long minutes in the ambulance? What if this? What if that? Questions and situations can be ‘n’ number. But where are the solutions?

Is it possible to come up with some all the more innovative medical emergency apparatus, wherein even if the ambulance gets stuck up in traffic and isn’t in a position to reach the hospital in time, still some parallel action and initial line of treatment would begin for the ailing patient? Many countries have paramedics, who operate sitting in these ambulances and kick off some initial treatment for the patient. I think our country really needs such hard hitting paramedics to operate inside these ambulances. This way, ambulances won’t restrict their role to merely picking up and dropping needy patients to hospitals; they will have a wider role to play in our society- because as far as traffic control mechanisms are concerned, we don’t seem to be going anywhere, as far as bottlenecking new vehicles plying on road every single day, we are spearheading like no other nation- so when things are just getting out of gear in all these aspects, isn’t it time we find concrete solutions for better manning and managing emergency medical carrier services?

Getting top line sophisticated medical treatment in hospitals is one end of the continuum. But taking some specific steps to enable thousands of patients to reach this beeline of hospitals on time is something which needs hard core solutions. Access to good healthcare should start at that very crucial juncture. Hospital management has to come of age and encompass even medical carriers in its forte.

In West, even a distant sound of an ambulance alerts drivers and riders. It’s a part of the rules to stop and give a right of way to an ambulance. In India, where vehicles are just inches away from climbing onto one another (!!!), especially when there’s a traffic jam, from where on earth can we give a right of way to these beeping ambulances?

It’s only feasible to find the right framework of solutions for effective medical carriers. Because Time they say, is the essence of a medical treatment.

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