Guwahati : Patients from difficult-to-access locations in the landlocked northeastern states can heave a sigh of relief, as a Guwahati-based hospital is planning to launch air ambulance services to ferry patients from across the region.
The Guwahati Neurological Research Centre (GNRC) Tuesday unveiled a plan to launch air ambulance and medical outreach programme using helicopters to remote areas of all the eight northeastern state – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.
“Doctors from GNRC will be ferried to difficult-to-access locations across the region and provide doorstep medical support to the people,” said neurologist Nomal Chandra Borah of GNRC Hospitals Ltd.
Once started, the air ambulance service will be the first of its kind in the region.
GNRC was founded by Borah in 1985. It was the first super specialty healthcare centre in northeast India and presently operates three hospitals offering over 500 beds.
The hospital serves people of Assam, the other northeastern states as well as the neighboring southeast Asian countries of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Borah said GNRC was recently chosen by the World Bank to receive a grant of $150,000.
“We intend to set up 10 more hospitals in the region and beyond, within the next five years,” he said.