Guj to get 108 emergency services

Ahmedabad, Aug 3 (UNI) Lured by the success story of Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat Government, in partnership with EMRI, today officially announced that it would set up 108 emergency service operations in the city.

The Emergency Response Centre (ERC) would be set up in Ahmedabad to handle emergencies across the state, Venkat Changavalli, EMRI CEO, told reporters here today.

Mr Changavalli said the Gujarat government has allocated land to develop the state-of-art ERC that will handle all emergencies across the state. All emergency calls fromacross the state will land in the ERC through the toll free number 108.

He said the ERC will have Communication Officers, who will receive the call and collect information from the caller regarding the type of emergency. The Officer in the ERC will then send either an ambulance, fire and/or police vehicle depending upon the type of emergency.

The ERC physicians and emergency medical technicians in the ambulance will provide the pre-hospital care while taking the victim to the nearest hospital, Changavalli said.

The State-of-the-Art ERC is designed to be on par with the best of centres in the world and customised for 24 x 7 EMRI--108 services. While the infrastructure is under development, the current operations would be carried out from a temporary space provided at the Civil Hospital at Sola in city outskirts.

The services would be launched on August 30.

UNI