By IANS,
Ahmedabad : Gujarat is the first state in the country to think holistically in implementing emergency medical services, according to state Health Minister Jaynarayan Vyas.
Last year, the state set up the Gujarat Emergency Medical Services Authority (GEMSA) to fine-tune emergency medical services across the state. “An additional chief secretary will be looking into all aspects. In case of an accident, the priority is saving life and not medico-legal issues,” Vyas told IANS here Thursday.
The authority has the power to set allocations for emergency services, gather information, plan schemes, set implementation guidelines, fix minimum technical qualifications for emergency personnel, issue training certificates, and register trauma centres, among others, he said.
The other members of GEMSA are secretary legal, secretary home, health commissioner, professors of medicine and surgery BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad, president Indian Medical Association Gujarat chapter, chief executive State Disaster Management Authority, heads of various doctors associations and NGOs.
Vyas said that GEMSA has nothing to do with Gujarat’s nascent Indian Institute of Public Health being set up at Chiloda near Gandhinagar. Though IIPH is still not ready, boardroom activities have started from a provisional campus at the Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research here.