Milestone of 3 Lac cases served under our Ambulances Services (a significant number of which have been life-saving)

People mostly identify us with our work for child care and education among impoverished and vulnerable segments. However, in last few years our health services too have scaled up to such an extent and with such expanse in some of the most interior areas covering thousands of villages.

Under our free 24*7*365 Ambulance Services program we have an active fleet of 93 ambulances serving in 23 districts in Madhya Pradesh. To our knowledge this is the largest free service by any entity outside Government.

This free ambulance service in the remotest corners of the state has provided a much needed life-saving service to a highly underserved population – tribal communities.

The cases served by these ambulances range from deliveries and other pregnancy matters, accidents, snake bites, ailments needing immediate care. Some of the areas served by this service are the poorest not just in MP but in the entire country, like Alirajpur district, Karahal block of Sheopur district, Patalkot area of Chhindwara district, Baigachak area of Dindori district etc. There are 89 designated tribal blocks in MP and we cover most of them.

Before the launch of any ambulance the voncernef District team coordinates with the local government hospitals (PHCs & CHCs) and spreads the information about these ambulances across these hospitals, ASHA/Anganwaadi/Panchayat officials, and the village communities. The call is first made on our call centees which have a designated phone number, and then it is routed to the ambulance deployed in that particular area by the call centre staff.

The critical need and role of Parivaar’s Ambulance service is underlined by the fact that many such ambulances were deployed by us on the specific requests of elected representatives (both central and state) and senior bureaucrats who clearly realized that despite their best efforts, because of the limitations of the government system large number of people remain unserved in times of crisis.

We are often asked that since the Ambulance Service should be the primary responsibility of the government, why have we at all entered this space. There are several compelling ground realities that have been the reasons behind our intervention. In tribal areas, that are typically sparsely populated, distances are huge as compared to the population and even considering efficient service by the government ambulance system – which of course varies from place to place – there still remains a huge gap. Many of the villages in these areas are far from even motorable roads and people have to be brought to the road by make-shift palanquins.

The number of ambulances in these areas is far less than the actual need. For example, in an administrative block of more than 1000 sq.kms with a population between 1-2 lakhs, there are generally about 2-3 ambulances. They are often already on a serving trip when an emergency call is received by them which leads to huge delays in servicing that call.

These problems are not clearly visible in urban areas and therefore often difficult to relate to, because of private ambulances, possibility of hiring four wheelers or presence of any other four wheelers owned within the communities.

Our field experience has indicated that because of budgetary constraints or delays in the government system, there are several instances when ambulances, even when in working condition remain idle. Situations like the funds for operating expenditure like fuel, driver and attendant’s salary etc have not been received by the district leading to periodic non functioning are not uncommon.

Also because of communication / network problems in these remote areas it is not always possible to contact the government ambulance system whereas due to the extensive community presence of our cadre in these areas, the message of such need somehow reaches us and the problem is quickly addressed.

The service delivered by Parivaar ambulances is of high urgency need, necessitating a very quick response time.

It would be extremely pitiable if people continue to lose lives on account of not being able to access the hospitals in crisis situations. We will be most happy to downsize or even exit this space as and when this service is entirely fulfilled by the State and avoidable human deaths do not happen on this account.

The cardinal thrust for non-state /non-profit actors should ideally remain this : Serve those communities /spaces which get sieved out both by the Government as well as Market services.