Health : Accessible Emergency Response units
Satyam's RamaLinga Raju and AP Government has recently started a 500 Ambulance strong help line to expdite Emergency response.
Ramalinga Raju's set up a foundation, the Emergency Management & Research Institute three years ago. At the time, there was no 911 in India, and millions of people were dying each year who could have been saved with the proper intervention. EMRI launched trials on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
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When the government saw how effective the operations were, it decided to help fund them. Today the government pays about 95% of the operating costs for emergency response services that span the state, and Raju's foundation pays the rest. The system runs 500 ambulances and handles more than 300,000 police, fire, and emergency calls per day.
Source: From Indian IT Tycoon, Health Care for the Poor (Business Week )
As anybody can figure out, 500 vehicles is an excellent start, but could hardly reach any significant population. Hopefully, more private organizations pitch in and contribute to the operations to make this service accessible even to remote villages. That is where, even a basic emergency response could save 100s of lives.
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