NEW DELHI: India needs a law that guarantees emergency medical care, with a special focus on trauma care, to help save millions of lives lost due to preventable deaths, a study has said.
The Right to Emergency Medical Care Act should align with the Right to Education Act, which makes it compulsory to provide education to all children in the age group of 6 to 14 years as a fundamental right, said the study Global Comparative Research on Right to Emergency Medical Care.
The study, released by SaveLIFE Foundation, an NGO that works to improve road safety and emergency medical care across India, came out with the suggestion after conducting a survey across 10 countries that showed that such a law would enable the creation of systems that work in an integrated manner as seen in many countries.
Quoting the 201st Report of the Law Commission of India, which said that 50% of those killed in road accidents could have been saved had they received timely emergency medical care, the study recommended the creation of more trauma centres and training of staff.
Speaking with this paper, Piyush Tewari, the Founder and CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation, said, “A Right to Trauma Care law will ensure that there is an overarching framework that provides minimum guarantees as far as the various elements of the system and their operation is concerned as opposed to working in silos.”
“This may be on the lines of the Right to Education Act that ensured the creation of systems that were required to ensure the delivery of the right to education to every child in the country,” Tewari said.
Such an Act will play a crucial role in saving lives as it will cater to not just the provision of ambulances for trauma victims but also what happens before and after the arrival of an ambulance, he added.