Gujarat Government on Monday launched an air ambulance service in the state. The service was inaugurated from the GujSAIL headquarters at Ahmedabad Airport by the state Civil Aviation Minister Purnesh Modi.
The project will be co-managed by the health department and GVK-EMRI, which operates 108 ambulance services across the state. The service will be made available via 108-service. Caregivers would be charged between Rs 55,000 and Rs 65,000 per hour for their services. They will also have to pay other airport fees. The payments must be made to GujSAIL. The transportation from the hospital to the airport will be free of charge.
Currently, the service is limited to intra-state transfers of patients inside Gujarat, but a request to transport the patient outside of the state will be considered if medical advice is provided.
The aircraft to be utilised as an air ambulance is a 20-year-old Beechcraft 200 plane that was formerly used for CM and VVIPs. According to a GujSAIL officer, the air ambulance will contain one doctor and two paramedics. The airplane is outfitted with a ventilator, defibrillator, ECG monitor, and other safety features.
When PM Modi was chief minister, he announced the launch of a helicopter-based air ambulance service from Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, as well as the construction of a helipad on the BJ Medical College campus. Several years later, during the time of CM Anandiben Patel, a new helipad was built atop the new trauma centre, and an announcement for an air ambulance was made, however neither project took off.
