Besides rolling out 50 more ambulances in the current fleet of 585 of 108 emergency ambulance services, Gujarat state health department has also rolled out two '108' boat ambulance service along 1,600 km coastline recently.

Each ambulance will carry 32 types of basic medicines, four disposable medical consumables and 21 types of non disposable equipment like automated external defibrillator (AED) machine and nebuliser.

Informed Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) Commissioner Dr H G Koshia, “Two boat ambulances have been deployed initially along with a mobile application to streamline operations along 1,600 km coastline.”

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani formally launched '108' boat ambulance service in Ahmedabad recently, which will be available 24X7 and cater to around 1.40 lakh fishermen for emergency medical treatment in the high seas. A nonprofit organisation GVK EMRI will run the boat ambulance service.

Each boat ambulance will have five crew members, including a captain and an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). The on board crew will remain in touch with fishermen, coast guard, fisheries department and district police to respond to a medical emergency in the high seas.

GVK EMRI 108 emergency services which have already completed 10 years of operation in Gujarat had 53 ambulances in January 2008. Gujarat is the second state where free emergency services have been introduced. In the last 10 years, 108 ambulances have attended close to 78 lakh emergencies.

Paramedics have helped in over 75,000 childbirths and saved about 6.20 lakh lives through their operations. Response Centre at Kathwada is visited by over 27,400 emergency and health experts from India and abroad.

The '108' mobile app has five different modules, including one for the citizens. If someone calls the '108' service using this app, the operator would automatically know the location of the caller without having to spend time in knowing the whereabouts.