It saved over 73,000 lives in six years

HYDERABAD: The ‘108’ emergency services, which have remained paralysed across the state for more than 20 days, will be back in operation from Monday with the 4,000-odd employees calling off their strike.The 108 services, one of the several welfare schemes launched by the YSR regime, has proved more than precious to the people.Since its launch on August 15, 2005, EMRI’s 715 ambulances attended to 4 4,33, 903 emergency cases, including 73, 276 life-saving cases, till August 15, 2010.This achievement was claimed by GVK-EMRI during its 5th anniversary celebrations last year.The ambulances attended to 3,600 emergency cases per day on an average, including 53 life-saving cases, during According to the statistics, people in rural areas were hard hit by the strike as 80 per cent of the services being offered to rural population. This is because there will be no other mode of transort to shift a seriously ill patient to a hospital.The composition of cases is: maternity: 25 per cent , road accidents: 22 per cent, acute abdominal problem :11 per cent and cardiac, respiratory problems and suicide attempts:: 5 per cent.Prior to the strike, as many as 715 ambulances were working in the state.On an average one ambulance used to aattend five cases a day in the state and 10 to 12 in the capital.During the strike period the management was able to operate hardly 30 ambulances per day.Employees association secretary, Ch Varaprasad claimed that the GVK-EMRI was not able operate a single ambulance in 14 districts _ Srikakulam, Vijayanagaram, West Godavari, Prakasam, Nellore, Kadapa, Anantapur, Mahaboobnagar, Medak, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Khammam and Nalgonda.