Proposed air ambulance service’s fate up in the air

Project was meant to increase people’s access to healthcare services, especially in rural areas

LAHORE:

Despite emergencies ambulances fail to exercise their right of way on Lahore’s choked roads; keeping that in mind an air ambulance service was set to be introduced by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) provincial government - then came the political uncertainty.

The air ambulance service, which was to be incorporated within the Rescue 1122 service, was given the go-ahead by the now caretaker chief minister Usman Buzdar and funds for it were allocated in the development budget for the current fiscal year. However, the PTI’s opposition believes that this promise too was empty like other promises the “incompetent and inefficient” Buzdar government made.

As per details available with The Express Tribune, helicopters were to be used to transport patients in a timely manner as ambulances often do not make it in time due to Lahore’s heavy traffic. The project hit a snag when the Punjab government realized that helicopters was not a financially feasible option and thus changed strategy to start the air ambulance service with geocopters instead.

DG Rescue Rizwan Naseer, while talking to The Express Tribune about the plan, said that talks for the procurement of helicopters and geocopters had already been started and that the department’s work was complete. “Air ambulance services were to start in all major cities of the province along with Lahore. The aim was to facilitate people’s access to healthcare services especially those in remote areas,” Naseer informed.

The Express Tribune learnt that the project was set to start in nine divisions of Punjab under the first phase - Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi, Sahiwal, Bahawalpur, and DG Khan divisions were chosen and the project was to be expanded after the first phase. While those in the PTI quarters in Punjab claim that the project had been fully implemented, sources privy to the matter have denied such claims stating that the feasibility of the project was worked out by the Planning and Development Department (P&D) and had been submitted to the caretaker chief minister Punjab but came to a halt due to the turbulent political situation in the province.

Officials familiar with the matter told The Express Tribune that even before the political unrest, the civil aviation department criticized the project and had sent its concerns to the P&D department. The officials said that geocopters require small runways, which hospitals do not have. The Express Tribune contacted officials of the civil aviation department but they declined to comment on the matter.

When inquired about the lack of implementation of the air ambulance service, a spokesperson for the PTI’s Punjab wing, whilst requesting anonymity, said that work on the project would resume once the PTI government came back into power in the upcoming elections.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2022.