The much-awaited free emergency services for the masses will hit Punjab very soon. The state government would sign an MoU with Mumbai-based emergency service provider Ziqitza Healthcare Ltd for rolling out emergency services by the end of this month. The service will be launched in a phased manner and the operations will begin within three months of signing the MoU. In the first phase 90 ambulances will be launched in the state.
Total 240 ambulances equipped with all the necessary life-saving appliances and medicines would be rolled out in a phased manner. The services would be funded partly by the state government and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scheme of the Centre. The state government has made a budgetary provision of Rs 25 crore for rolling out the services.
Punjab Health Secretary Satish Chandra said, “In response to our advertisement, two parties have shown interest, which are Mumbai-based Ziqitza Healthcare Ltd and Delhi-based Falck India (P) Ltd, which has collaboration with a Denmark-based emergency service provider. We have selected Mumbai-based Ziqitza Healthcare Ltd as there quotation was low. They have quoted Rs 1.2 lakh as recurring expenses per ambulance which was lower than its competitor.”
According to a data, at least 7,500 emergencies (related to health) occur per day in the state and every year 100,000 people die due to them.
The ambitious plan has been delayed byabout 2 years. Initially the state government had signed MoU with Hyderabad-based The Emergency Management and Research Institute (now GVK EMRI) in 2009 and the company was to launch comprehensive Emergency Response Services (ERS) covering Medical, Police and Fire by April 2009, in Punjab. Few days after signing of MoU,the Satyam scam was unearthed. Since Satyam computers was a technology partner for EMRI services and the scheme was being supported by the Centre, the department had written to the Centre stating the situation and putting the project on hold. After that the state government decided to re-advertise for the services as new players were offering attractive rates. The capital cost of the ambulance would be borne by the Centre and in the first year, the Centre would bear the 60 per cent of the maintenance cost (rest by the state government), second year 40 per cent, third year (80 per cent), while in the forth year the entire maintenance cost would be borne by the state government.
