Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday flagged off 501 basic as well as advance life support ambulances, adding them to the existing fleet of 1107 ambulances under “102” emergency services.
With this, Bihar has become the first state in the country to have an advance life support ambulance (ALSA) in every block of the state, according to a statement released by the state government.
Kumar said he had decided last year to replace 652 old ambulances with 1,000 new ambulances in the state. In keeping with the decision, the health department had purchased 1,000 new ambulances — 534 ALSAs and 466 basic life support ambulances (BLSA), the statement quoted the chief minister as saying.
The new ambulance will strengthen the state’s referral transport system and help pregnant women, children, senior citizen, road accident victims to rush to health facilities, said the statement.
The ambulance response time was expected to be 35 minutes in rural areas and 20 minutes in urban areas.
Once all the ambulances are inducted, Bihar will be among the few states to have more number of ambulances as against the population norm prescribed by the Indian Public Health Standards, said health minister Mangal Pandey.
“The Indian Public Health Standards norm prescribes having 1 BLSA (basic life support) ambulance per 1 lakh population and 1 ALSA for a population of 5 lakh. Bihar will have 1 BLSA per 86,000 population and 1 ALSA per 2.17 lakh population, which was a big achievement,” Pandey said.
As many as 275 of the 501 ambulances inducted on Thursday were ALSAs and the remaining 226 were BLSAs, which were sent across all 38 districts of the state.
The remaining 499 ambulances will be sent to the districts by August 31, said Pandey.
The ALSAs are equipped with oxygen support, ventilator, defibrillator, cardiac monitor, central van catheter among others. These are meant for critical patients, including those suffering from cardiac ailment, nephrological and neurological conditions, besides road traffic accident cases. BLSAs have oxygen cylinders in them and are meant for transporting ordinary patients to hospitals.
Deputy chief minister Tarkishore Prasad and a host of government officers were present on the occasion.
