Since its inception in August 2005, the 108 medical emergency response services have stored the lives of over 2 million sufferers throughout 15 states and a pair of union territories.
Started with the aid of the Emergency Management & Research Institute (EMRI), a non-income presently underneath the aegis of Indian conglomerate GVK, the 108 service attends to “eighty,000 calls every day and touches a populace of 800 million,” in line with K Krishnam Raju, Director, GVK-EMRI. Besides, it has additionally instituted a much-needed structural trade in how emergency hospital therapy is delivered to India’s poorest sufferers in urban and rural regions before they’re taken to a medical institution. EMRI changed into first an initiative undertaken through Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computer Services.
First conceptualized in (united) Andhra Pradesh by way of the late Dr. AP Ranga Rao, a person of the extremely good intellect and passion who possessed a burning choice to do something for the human beings, a robust scientific emergency machine turned into Rao’s primary awareness. Spending close to a decade working with the British National Health Service (NHS) studying approximately emergency systems, his vision became to introduce the identical for India’s public health machine.
Nonetheless, it changed into Venkat Changavalli, the primary CEO of the Hyderabad-based Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), who becomes the actual architect behind 108. And, for the problem, if it weren’t for his father, Venkat could have never even taken up the activity.
“I became the CEO of a German multinational primarily based out of Chennai, once I chaired a conference titled ‘Beyond Creating Value’ in January 2005. The leader visitor at the time changed into Satyam Computer Services chairman Ramalinga Raju. Following the conference, Raju approached me with a proposal of doing something concrete in emergency services. He didn’t have 108 in mind or even a real plan, however, desired to tap into my considerable company enjoy, ardor for innovation and a latent desire for public service,” says Venkat, in a special conversation with The Better India.
Initially, he had rejected the notion, unwilling to give up his high-paying process and wasn’t organized to get into public provider simply but. However, communication with his father, a retired school instructor, modified the whole lot. His father started constructing a legacy, asking Venkat to utilize his time, money, competencies and expertise to help the hundreds of thousands he doesn’t realize. Following the communication, Venkat called up Raju and on 15 April 2005, he took over as CEO of EMRI.
Before the 108 service has become operative, researchers at EMRI had expected that four million Indians had been death every yr due to inadequate scientific emergency services. Of the 4 million deaths, around 60 consistent with cent (2.4 million) had been related to cardiac-related emergencies, accompanied through 1,50,000 being pregnant-associated deaths, 1, forty,000 avenue coincidence fatalities, respiration distress, snake bites, and suicide tries, among different reasons.
“Through its studies, EMRI has [also] found out that 10 consistent with cent of Indians face emergencies however either don’t realize them as such or have nowhere to call,” says this July 2010 Harvard Business Review document.
“Instead of 1 variety of human beings can dial for medical emergencies, there had been more than one helpline numbers for authorities and private hospitals. Moreover, there were no standardized ambulances that provided pre-health facility care. These automobiles had been largely transporting ambulances without the needful system or knowledge to stabilize a patient. If these facilities have been to be had, patients had been charged an exorbitant amount. Government ambulances were there, however in terrible working conditions. This becomes the scenario,” recalls Venkat.
EMRI first signed a settlement with the (united) Andhra Pradesh authorities on 2 April 2005, stating that the latter would be a non-investment partner even as the EMRI, with its personal funds would design, set up and run the ambulances at their own fee.
“Receiving Rs 34 crore from Ramalinga Raju and 17 participants of his family, I utilized this corpus of finances to assemble the EMRI constructing, bought hardware for a call center, bought its first 30 ambulances and began the emergency carrier on 15 August 2005,” says Venkat.
