By IANS
Ahmedabad : Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Wednesday set a goal of saving one million lives by providing emergency medical services throughout India by 2010.
Launching the Dial 108 emergency medical services in Gujarat, Kalam said: “A national programme of multi-state emergency services should be put in place for achieving the vision of saving million lives.”
He said Gujarat, which has achieved considerable success in eliminating leprosy and polio, can play a key role in realising the vision.
He said alongside providing emergency medical services, research should be done into the causes behind these emergencies and structural deficiencies should be eliminated in order to bring down the loss of lives.
With this launch, the Emergency Medical Response System, evolved by the Emergency Research Institute (EMRI) in 2005, got operationalised in the state with 20 ambulances that will guarantee pre-hospital care in any emergency.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Narendra Modi said the launch marked the opening of one more significant chapter in the state’s mission to provide people with the best that was available anywhere in the world.
He said the introduction of Emergency Response Management System was a big challenge, but the state had decided to meet the challenge.
Gujarat was committed to make the system a success by continuous upgradation of hospital services and improvement of physical infrastructure in the entire state through public-private partnership.
By 2010, the entire state will be connected to the system with 50 ambulances having state-of-the-art medical equipment and manned by trained paramedics.
Venkat Changavalli, CEO of EMRI, and Amarjeet Singh, the state’s health commissioner, signed the agreement on the introduction of the system in the state.
The EMRI was founded by Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers.