Gurgaon civil hospital has one ambulance per 500 patients

The state of ambulance services in Gurgaon civil hospital is very poor with only one ambulance for 500 patients

The death of a three-month-old boy at the Gurgaon civil hospital due to an alleged delay in getting an ambulance has highlighted the poor state of ambulance services at the hospital.

The Gurgaon civil hospital has a total of six ambulances. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

There is one ambulance for every 500 patients using the facility at the civil hospital. Around 3,000 patients visit the civil hospital every day with more than 250 patients admitted. Of all these patients, only a handful can use the six ambulances available with the hospital. The whole district has a total of 16 ambulances, including these six.

“We used to have 19 ambulances, but three were discarded because of their poor condition,” said Neelam Thapar, deputy civil surgeon, civil hospital, Gurgaon.

Of the 16 ambulances, 10 are in different locations in the district — Badshahpur, Bhondsi, Sohna, Daula village, Sector 10 hospital, Farukhnagar, Daulatabad, Pataudi, Hailey Mandi, and Kasan.

Of the civil hospital’s six ambulances, three have advanced life-support systems while the rest are basic life-support ambulances.

“We have three ambulances with an oxygen support unit. We do not charge for OPD patients who are to be transferred to another hospital if they are pregnant women, children or accident victims,” said Shukh Dev, an ambulance unit staff at the civil hospital.

Speaking about the procedure to get an ambulance from the civil hospital, he said that they allot an ambulance when they get a report from a doctor. “We do not require any further information. If ambulances are not available at any given time, the patients hire private ambulances,” he said.