Bike ambulances to be launched across Delhi

In February, as a pilot project, the government launched 16 first-responder vehicles in three districts – East, Northeast Delhi and Shahdara.

The Delhi government is set to expand the services of bike ambulances to entire Delhi, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday.

These vehicles are meant to provide first medical aid for emergencies at home before the regular ambulances can transport the patient to a hospital. (Sonu Mehta/ HT Archive)

“A large number of Delhi’s people live in unauthorised colonies or other such areas where streets are very narrow. I was very concerned about how to provide better emergency health care to the people living in these colonies. With this in mind, the bike ambulance service was launched. It was started on a pilot basis in East Delhi and it has shown excellent results. The Delhi government is planning to extend the service to the entire city,” Kejriwal said.

In February, as a pilot project, the government launched 16 first-responder vehicles in three districts – East, Northeast Delhi and Shahdara.

When an emergency call comes from a congested neighbourhood, the Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) control room dispatches the bike ambulances along with a regular ambulance.

These vehicles are meant to provide first medical aid for emergencies at home before the regular ambulances can transport the patient to a hospital.

This is done to cut down the time between the reception of the call and medical intervention.

During the pilot project, the bike ambulances were successfully able to reduce the response time from an average 25 minutes to about 12 minutes.

“In some cases such as accidents and heart attacks, even a few minutes can make a difference between life and death. The bike ambulances have successfully reduced the response time to about half of what it used to be in congested areas in Delhi. Now, the ambulances attend to about 600 calls a day,” said a senior Delhi government official, on condition of anonymity.

The bike ambulances are equipped with kits, weighing 30 kg, which contain air splints to immobilise joints, an ambu bag for assisted breathing, glucometer and pulse oximeter to check a person’s blood glucose and oxygen saturation levels, manual suction machine to clear airway, and foldable transfer sheets that can be used to move patients in a narrow stairwell or from a narrow lane to the ambulance.

The ambulance services were severely affected since July, when about 1,300 contractual staff, including ambulance drivers and paramedics, went on a strike.

The staff for bike ambulances was diverted to run the regular ambulance services.