BHUBANESWAR: Health and Family Welfare Minister Pratap Jena on Thursday flagged off 26 ambulances taking the 108 emergency ambulance service fleet to 470. The 108 ambulance service was launched in the State in March 2013 and at present, it is covering all 30 districts, providing emergency medical services free of cost to the people. The fleet has both Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances. In addition, the State has a fleet of 500 ambulances under 102 service for transportation of pregnant mothers and sick infants.
On December 23, 2017, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had dedicated 92 additional ambulances of which 24 were flagged off on the same day. While Jena launched 26, the remaining 42 vehicles of the fleet will be rolled out in the last phase across the State.“The additional ambulances will further improve the performance of emergency service in the State, particularly in tribal districts and meet the increasing demand.
The Government had made a budget provision of `90 crore over a period of five years for the additional ambulances,” the Health Minister said.So far, over 35 lakh people have been benefited from the ambulance service which has been instrumental in significant reductions in both the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in the State.