Bengaluru: 120 Advanced Life Support ambulances added under Arogya Kavacha

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Sunday inaugurated 120 Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances added under the Arogya Kavacha - 108 service in Bengaluru. Speaking on the occasion Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said, “There are about 710 ambulances operating under the Arogya Kavacha - 108 scheme and 155 among them are ALS ambulances. All the 120 ambulances flagged off by CM today are ALS ambulances.”

The Arogya Kavacha which was introduced in 2008 by the then CM BS Yediyurappa and then Health Minister Sriramulu will be given a new facelift. If technologies like GPS, mobile app are adopted then we can ensure that ambulances reach the patient within 10-15 minutes. The mapping of hospitals helps identify the nearest available hospitals and also brings in transparency. Now it takes about 30-45 minutes for an ambulance to reach the patient in urban areas and in rural areas it is even more. We are working to bring down the turnaround time to 10-15 mins by using technology and also increasing the number of ambulances. At present there is 1 ambulance for 1 lakh population and we want to increase it to make 1 ambulance for every 45,000 to 50,000 population. We also provide training to drivers and paramedical staff to make the service more people-friendly, the minister added.

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