Excellent response to bike ambulance project, plans afoot to expand it to entire Delhi: Kejriwal

Buoyed by the "overwhelmingly positive response" to the bike ambulance project in east Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said plans are afoot to expand the service across the national capital.

The AAP government had in February flagged off 16 bike ambulances, known was First Responder Vehicles (FRVs), in a district in east Delhi on pilot basis.

"The service has received an overwhelmingly positive response from the residents of Delhi. It is targeted to give last-mile connectivity to emergency healthcare services to people who live in congested areas, where ambulances could not enter in the past," the Delhi government said in a statement.

Kejriwal, in a tweet on Friday, indicated that there are plans to expand the service.

"I am happy that patients living in narrow bylanes of Delhi are also getting health facilities through bike ambulances. A plan is underway to expand this service to entire Delhi," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

The pilot project has shown "excellent results," Kejriwal was quoted as saying in the statement.

"A large number of people in Delhi live in unauthorised colonies or other such areas where streets are very narrow. I was very concerned about how to provide better emergency healthcare to the people living in these colonies. With this in mind, the Bike Ambulance service was launched... Delhi government is planning to extend the service to the entire city," he said.

The facilities available in FRV include a portable oxygen cylinder, a first aid kit and dressing materials, air-splints, foldable transfer sheets, ambu bags, glucometer, pulse oxymeter, a portable manual suction machine, a GPS device and a communication device. According to a government statement, these FRVs are manned by trained ambulance manpower.