Although Karachi has quite a few ambulance services, including the Sindh Emergency and Rescue Service 1122 and those managed by welfare organisations, finding an ambulance in case of emergency in many city areas, including Gulzar-i-Hijri, is an uphill task. In fact, it is not a rarity to find none and make do with some other means.
Ironically, when there is an emergency that is worth being shown on television screens, so many ambulances reach the spot that even rescue work gets hampered. It is all about visibility which is practically an unpaid advertising campaign for donation-seeking.
Another spot where these ambulances are seen and available is tertiary care centres from where the ambulances deliver the ‘service’ of shifting bodies to the houses of the grieving families. This service, by the way, is duly paid for.
But when it comes to everyday emergencies that carry no profile — and involve no bodies — these same ambulance services take no time turning down requests citing one ‘reason’ or the other.
Recently, one of my friends’ father had a roadside accident at Safoora Chowrangi. Although Dow Hospital is nearby, it took the family more than half-an-hour to get an ambulance and reach the hospital.
When Rescue 1122 was contacted, their numbers were found constantly engaged. When contact was established with a welfare organisation, it said it would call back, but never did. An ambulance was finally arranged after a lot of physical search. It was more like a patient-carrier than an ambulance. Its pathetic condition suggested the ambulance itself was on some ‘auto emergency’ mode. But, yes, it did the job that day.
The Sindh government and the new mayor of the city must streamline at least the Rescue 1122 service by adding more ambulances to the fleet and more lines to keep the helpline functional.
M HASSAN ABBASI
KARACHI
