COIMBATORE: Crew members of the 108 ambulance service have raised serious concerns over technical glitches in the newly introduced Enterprise Emergency Management System (EEMS) saying the faulty system is delaying emergency response.
The EEMS software was introduced by EMRI-GHS, which manages the 108 service in Tamil Nadu, to digitise operations and reduce manual intervention in assigning ambulances. The aim was to automatically dispatch the nearest available ambulance to a patient, cut down delays and improve response times.
However, ambulance staff alleged that the system is plagued with technical problems. "Due to poor quality GPS devices, older devices, and faults in the Auto Case Assign feature, emergency calls are being assigned to ambulances located far away from the callers instead of to the nearest ones. Because of this, patients in accidents and other life-threatening emergencies are not getting medical help on time," said an ambulance driver in Coimbatore.
R Rajendran, State General Secretary of the 108 Ambulance Workers Union, Tamil Nadu said that the delay is also affecting the 'Golden Hour' which is to be maintained in all emergency calls. "Response time is the critical period in which immediate treatment can save lives. If this issue continues, it will directly impact both response timing and the core objective of the 108 service.
We have raised the issue before the concerned authorities several times evidentially. We ask them to upgrade the mobile phones, GPS device and other technical supports on par with the EEMS software. It may be considered a small problem. But, technical glitches directly reflect in the response time," said Rajendran.
Demanding urgent intervention, the staff have called on the state and EMRI-GHS management to immediately review and fix all technical defects in the EEMS application. They have also urged authorities to replace the substandard GPS devices with accurate, modern equipment and to upgrade the Auto Case Assign system so that emergency calls are routed only to the nearest ambulances.
An authority from EMRI-GHS denied the allegations. They said that this system has been used for the last two years, during which around 5,000 cases had been attended by the ambulances every day without any issues. "The same system has been in use in 17 states. During the initial days, we had some issues, and they were rectified. Now it is performing well," they said