Slidin Scale/India

[explenture]

From http://www.pharmacy-technician-certification.com/?p=23...... What are your thoughts on this?

If you’ve ever seen an ambulance screaming past your vehicle on the roads and felt your heart beat faster, you’re one of those who know the true value of life; you realize that every second counts when a person is in danger and that the faster they can get medical help, the better their prospects of survival. For the loved ones of the patient in the ambulance, it’s a long ride, perhaps not literally, but in every other sense of the word. From the time they call emergency services, till the time the patient has been admitted to the hospital and attended to, they’re not able to function normally. Their hearts are in their mouths as they pray and hope that their loved one pulls through with no lasting damage.

The situation is even more fraught with nervousness and uncertainty when you’re talking about developing countries where the infrastructure is not as good as it is in places like the UK and the USA. India, for example, is a country that’s doing well as far as software and the IT industry are concerned. But there are many areas in the country where they don’t have an emergency number like 999 to call in case of a medical emergency. The government does maintain EMS services in places like New Delhi, the capital of the country, but even this is bound in miles of red tape so that the benefits more often than not never reach the common man.

Ambulance drivers and staff are more likely to ask for a bribe than concentrate on getting the patient to a hospital, the paramedics, if they are present, are usually untrained, the roads are unbelievably clogged with traffic, and every now and then, the country goes on a strike which paralyzes even essential services and sends traffic to a standstill. Under such circumstances, it’s a miracle that the patient gets to the hospital, let alone alive.

There is a small ray of hope for the country in the private sector though – a band of self-styled do-gooders have come together to form a not-for-profit agency called Ambulance Access for All. This group of five people launched their venture Ziqitza with initial help from the London Ambulance Service, and introduced the congested city of Mumbai to an ambulance service that used a sliding scale of payment, a novelty both to the city and in the entire country. The patient would have to pay depending on the hospital he or she was being transferred to, and in case they were being taken to government-run clinics and hospitals, the service was entirely free of cost.

With a single number, 1298, that could be called from any phone line, a team of trained paramedics, a fleet of state-of-the-art ambulances, and an efficient support staff in the control room, Ziqitza promised to deliver patients to their destinations within 15 minutes, irrespective of the location of the caller. The company has extended its operations to the southern state of Kerala too, having set up ambulances to serve three towns so far.

Ziqitza is looking to cover the entire country with its network of ambulances, an ambitious project in deed, but one that will certainly make a world of difference.