An elderly man aged 73, who was a resident of Andheri, Steven Fernandes, suffered a fatal heart attack. He died on March 27. While he was in pain, his family was struggling to arrange an ambulance that could take him to the hospital and save his life. Even though he resided five minutes away from a private hospital in Mumbai and twenty minutes away from the civic-run Dr. R.N. Cooper Hospital, the ambulance could not reach there on time. They lost critical minutes due to an unresponsive emergency service and a delay in the arrival of a private ambulance. The family members said that at 2 am, they were trying to reach out to the services for help, but no vehicle showed up on time.
“At 2 am, my husband and I were frantically calling every number we could find for an ambulance,” Mohua Gupta, Fernandes’ daughter-in-law, told Hindustan Times. In their first attempt, they dialed 108, the state emergency response service’s helpline number. Unfortunately, the call didn’t go through or connect to 103, the police helpline. When they saw that there was no help forthcoming, the family searched for an ambulance online and connected with a private ambulance vendor from Andheri East. That private vehicle owner answered their call and agreed to reach the location and drive Fernandes to the hospital.
The family was relieved a little since someone had agreed to come. Then they started to focus on Steven Fernandes, who was lying unconscious. Steven’s family could not drive him to the hospital without any help as he weighed over 100 kg. However, their relief turned to distress when the private ambulance took more than 40 minutes to arrive, despite the lack of traffic at that hour of the day.
When the ambulance arrived, the Fernandes family saw that they did not have any essential medical equipment. There was only a driver with just one helper. There were no paramedics, no physicians. It did not even have a stretcher, there was just one rubber mat for the patient to lie on. The ambulance did not have any oxygen supply or masks, which are very significant equipment required for critical and cardiac emergencies. Despite all this, before the patient could avail of ambulance service, the private firm sent them a text message demanding Rs 5,500. Gupta told HT that they protested, and yet they had to pay Rs 2,500.
Not long after the private ambulance departed, the family called 108 once again. An official ambulance was sent out this time after the call was rerouted to Cooper Hospital. But it took another half hour to get there. By then, it was past the critical Golden Hour, which is the first sixty minutes following a heart attack when prompt medical attention can save lives. By the time Fernandes got to the hospital, his pulse had stopped beating. The patient died before they could get to the hospital.