Blinkit grows its 10-minute ambulance service to 12 vehicles in Gurugram

Blinkit expands its 10-minute ambulance service in Gurugram to 12 vehicles and launches an in-house paramedic training programme to improve emergency care

Blinkit, the quick-commerce arm of Eternal, is building an in-house paramedic training programme as it ramps up its instant ambulance service in Gurugram. The company, which launched its ambulance service in January this year with five vehicles, has now expanded to 12 vehicles.

 

Sharing the update on the social networking platform LinkedIn, Deepinder Goyal, the chief executive officer of Eternal, wrote, "We learned how difficult it is to find and train paramedics who can deliver not just medical aid, but empathy when it matters most. Our team is now building an in-house paramedic training program to raise the bar of emergency care in India." According to Goyal, the ambulance service is currently available in almost half of Gurugram city, compared to the beginning of the year when it was serving a small area around Golf Course Road.

 

While sharing the success of this initiative, Goyal said that the ambulance service has been available within 10 minutes in around 83 per cent of cases. The company has responded to a total of 594 calls to date. "Until today, we have responded to 594 calls, 50 per cent of these critical emergencies. Today, our 12 ambulances across 6 depots reach patients within 10 minutes, 83 per cent of the time," Goyal wrote. 

 

The data on Blinkit's mobile application shows that out of 594 calls, 294 were for scheduled transfers, 225 were for major medical emergencies, and the remaining 75 were due to road accidents and injuries. The ambulances are staffed with a paramedic, an assistant, and a trained driver, along with onboard facilities including a stretcher, wheelchair, essential medicines, and oxygen cylinders.

 

During the time of the service launch, the chief executive officer of Blinkit, Albinder Dhindsa, said on social media, "Profit is not a goal here. We will operate this service at an affordable cost for customers and invest in really solving this critical problem for the long term. We aim to carefully scale this service and make it available in all major cities over the next two years."