CAG report raised questions on ambulance facility, said patients were denied the facility, many other problems also came to light.
Bike ambulances started to provide immediate relief to patients in the crowded areas of East, Shahdara and North East Delhi are now gathering dust. The scheme started by the Health Department under the pilot project lasted for a few days, but due to lack of staff, the scheme died before starting.
The scheme was started under the pilot project
When this scheme was started, it was expected that the injured in the crowded areas of Delhi would get immediate relief. The CAG report tabled in the Delhi Assembly has also raised questions on this scheme. According to the report, bike ambulances were approved in February 2018 to provide medical assistance in the crowded areas of Delhi. In this, First Response Vehicles (FRVs) were prepared using motorcycles. Under the pilot project, 16 FRVs were procured in May 2018 at a cost of 12.84 lakhs. In February 2019, they were deployed to cover East, Shahdara and North East districts. The FRVs were operated by regular CATS staff.
No efforts were made to restart the scheme
The audit of the report found that these FRVs were later withdrawn in March 2020 due to lack of staff. All the vehicles have been inactive since June 2022. No efforts were made to start these FRVs. In such a situation, the scheme remained non-functional since March 2020.
Outsourcing did not bring improvement in CATs ambulances
To provide timely ambulance facilities to the injured, 200 CATs ambulance facility was outsourced in August 2019 for three years. Considering the service, it could have been extended by two years. Under the agreement, the agency was to keep the response time within 15 minutes in 80 percent of the calls and within 25 minutes in the remaining calls. But the average response time of the ambulance was not calculated till December 2019. The average response time during the months of January 2020 to July 2020 ranged between 28 to 56 minutes and improved to 15 minutes by September 2022.
Arbitrary hiring of private ambulances
During the corona pandemic, 265 ambulances and 250 taxis/cabs were hired for vaccination in Delhi. The actual requirement of hired ambulances-cabs was again reviewed (October 2021) and it was decided to hire 135 ambulances and 320 cabs. The period of hiring 135 ambulances was extended till March 31, 2022. The report found that Delhi had not listed any agency to hire additional ambulances in emergencies. CATs ambulances were hired haphazardly in the absence of guidelines.
90% of ambulances were not active
As per the agreement with the outsourced agency, the agency has to keep 90% of the ambulance fleet active with 100% uptime. Details of the ambulances handed over to the outsourced agency and the average number of callable ambulances were given during the period from January 2018 to December 2021. In this, the agency could not keep 90% of the ambulances functional during 2018-20. In such a situation, CATs ambulances were unable to attend all the calls.
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