Educate rural pregnant women to utilise 108 service: Vyas

Rajkot, Aug 22 (UNI) Rajkot Mayor Sandhyaben Vyas today said that special attention has been given to educate pregnant women in rural areas and encourage them to utilise the free 108 service to increase institutional deliveries, thus reducing the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and the Mother Mortality Rate (MMR).

Speaking at the occasion of beneficiary meet ''Disha 2008,'' organised by Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) here, the Mayor lauded the EMRI 108 service for saving hundreds of lives during last one year.

Earlier, Gujarat in-charge of EMRI Amit Desai gave details about 108 service and said that today 260 ambulances are serving 4.56 crore population, covering whole of Gujarat, including 215 towns and 26 districts.

Elaborating about the expansion programme, Mr Desai said that by the end of September, 140 more ambulances would be added to cater to the emergency care.

The 108 Emergency Response Service is a comprehensive emergency service that services not only medical emergencies but also police and fire emergencies, Mr Desai said.

''We have been receiving 15,000 to 18,000 calls daily in Gujarat and most of them were genuine calls, he said.

An ambulance service is dispatched to the respective spot to rescue a person or provide necessary medical assistance, within the 15 minutes in urban areas after receiving a call, he said and added 20 minutes to reach the rural areas.

After implementing this service in Gujarat in August last, several lives have been saved, he claimed.

About 100 beneficiaries from Rajkot, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagadh, Jamnagar, Porbandar, Surendranagar and Kutch districts attended the 'beneficiary meet'.

UNI AV ZA/SSS VKG1910