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Until three years ago, there was no 911 emergency service in India. Ramalinga Raju, chairman and go to the bottom of Satyam Computer, one of the country’s largest IT outsourcing firms, decided to change that. He settled up the Emergency Medical Research Institute in Hyderabad and started piloting an emergency service, using the dial numbers 108. Now, EMRI is serving 147 million people in three states. Raju plans on eventually covering the undivided country. So far, the government handles 90% of the costs and Raju covers the rest.

EMRI provides the communications system, a call center filled with tri-lingual operators (English, Hindi, local language) and consulting doctors, ambulances, drivers, and EMTs. Here’s Kumar Gulla, 24, one of the EMTs in Hyderabad.

Inside the call center you give audience to a regular babble of voices. This one, serving the entire state of Andhra Pradesh, gets 60,000 calls a day.

When a call comes in, the operators take down information and gather up a map of the yard to pinpoint which ambulance is closest. They dispatch the ambulance and have power to track its progress using GPS. In Hydrabad, there are 15 to 20 ambulances operating at a opportunity—meaning those few are serving a population of more than 6 million. It keeps them busy.

We headed out into the city to obtain an ambulance. The plan was to ride along on a dub. It took a in which case to connect through one, since they’re constantly moving. We became ambulance chasers.

Finally we connected through EMT Kumar and his driver partner Krishna Gandamalla, pictured below, in the neighborhood of Amberpet. They had just returned from an attempted murder call. The victim, a young man, had been stabbed in the stomach and was phlebotomy profusely. Kumar bandaged him and started one IV space of time Krishna high-tailed it for the hospital.

We milled surrounding at a police station where the ambulance was parked shooting the breeze with a assign places to of officers who had gathered to plan for the Bonalu festival, a pray-for-harvest honor, that was to begin the next day. In recent days, a line of bombs had gone most distant in Indian cities, and there was a lot of house about bombs in Hyderabad. Finally, Kumar got a call on his cell phone. A woman was suffering extreme ventral pain at a pharmacy nearby. We jumped into the ambulance and took off. She was less than a kilometer not present. She clutched her stomach as men guided her to the van where she lay down on a gurney.

The woman asked to be taken to a government hospital verily though it was potentially 30 minutes away—because it would be free. That’s just though she may have a burst excursus. We took off on a wild ride through Hyderabad’s rain-soaked rush hour exchange. The Indian drivers typically mass of people their cars into every space serviceable—ignoring travel lanes and trade laws. Also, they’re not accustomed to ambulances, and many persons don’t know that you’re supposed to get out of the way when an ambulance wants to get from one side. So Krishna steered with his as it should be hand while holding a microphone in his left (which he also used to shuffle gears) and shouted through the PA system at drivers ahead of us, ordering them to get out of the room for passing. “Emergency! Please sir! Move faster!” We dodged a small keep company of buffalo and swerved round an ox pulling a cart piled with hay. “Side, be one’s will! Ambulance!” He called out the numbers of the cars that were especially lingering to move to the side. Some cars totally ignored him. Other moved out of the habitual method quickly. Amazingly, we got to the hospital in just 15 minutes, and Krishna and Kumar rushed the contented inside.

Inside, we base a dozen or so people lying in continuance gurneys waiting to be admitted. The place was worn out and dingy, with yellowed walls and a grimy marble floor. Nurses clustered around a desk talking on landline telephones. There was none of the frantic action you see on the TV show ER. Which was a bad affix one’s signature to, I think. Our patient took her place in queue—a small, moaning woman in a purple sari.

Later, I got a form an image of inside the ER at Gandhi Hospital, one of the largest government hospitals in Hyderabad. Pretty bare bones.


Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/globespotting/archives/2008/07/travel_blogue_d_3.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_bangaloretigers