The Hyderabad-based Mediciti Hospitals is to adopt National Highway 7 from Shamshabad to Jadcherla (in AP), a stretch of 100 km covering Kottur, Chandrayangutta, Shadnagar, Burugal, and Balanagar to provide instant medical aid to road accident victims. For this purpose the hospital has bought two ambulance vans and tied up with local nursing homes and also obtained a toll free telephone number -1600 33 4056.

Dr K Krishniah, Trauma and Orthopaedic surgeon, Mediciti, said, the service is being offered free of cost and once the victims are picked up after attending to, by the Mediciti trained staff, the victim's family is at free will to shift the patient to any other hospital of their choice. The Hyderabad Police and AP Road Safety Authority are supporting this initiative.

This has come at the right time when the state is witnessing the rate of road accidents growing day by day. Mediciti has found to its astonishment about 19 accidents in just 20 to 22 kms stretch alone on National Highway 7 in the last one month. The survival of accident victims depend much on the way lifting, shifting of the injured and the medical care rendered in the first few hours.

Dr Krishniah added, accidents are the third commonest cause of death after heart disease and cancer. He appealed the State Government to take more initiatives to make emergency care accessible by all. As per the data available with the Hospital, about 27, 234 accidents have happened in the last one year, of which 8, 263 have died.

"The victims who die in accidents are often the productive members of the family. The accidents in India are often 20 times fatal than those in the developed countries. One accident happens every 90 seconds and one person dies every 7 minutes in India. About 75,000 people die in accidents in India", he added.

B Narayanswamy, director and CEO, said, "Mediciti wishes to provide service to accident victims at the quickest possible time after accident".

Mediciti Hospitals was set up in 1993 in Hyderabad by the Indian medical professionals in the US as a 'Not For Profit' organization.