The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, in collaboration with the Health Ministry, launched a notification for the National Ambulance Code which will be applicable to ambulances across the country. The code defines constructional and functional requirements for road ambulances.
With the robust ambulance network missing across the country, the central government has come up with the National Ambulance Code with necessary amendments in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules (CMVR), 1989, which defines the constructional and functional requirements for road ambulances.
In this, four variants of ambulances have been approved: Type A Road Ambulance: Medical First Responder; Type B Road Ambulance: Patient Transport Vehicles; Type C Road Ambulance: Basic Life Support Ambulance and Type D Road Ambulance: Advanced Life Support Ambulance.
Recently, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in collaboration with the Health Ministry, launched a notification for the National Ambulance Code which is applicable for all the ambulances across the country and existing ambulances shall have to be standardised by April 1, 2018.
For this, experts from the Health and Transport ministries reviewed the ambulance standards across the world such as Europe, USA, the UK and Singapore, and noted that Indian ambulances are in pathetic condition.
Health experts say that initial first hour (golden hour) is very crucial for an injured patient and therefore trained paramedical personnel with optimum health care service is required.
Dr Shakti Kumar Gupta, head of department, hospital administration and medical superintendent of RP Centre AIIMS told Mail Today, “About 40-50 per cent of the patients die on their way to the hospitals due to mismanagement of ambulance network in India. The National Ambulance Code will bring a standardisation in ambulances, which at present is missing and majority of the ambulances in India are violating the Central Motor Vehicles Rules (CMVR) and the Motor Vehicles Act of India.”