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Urgent need for single emergency helpline number!
Written By kbsyed61 - 25 November, 2011
Civic amenities Bangalore Police suggestion Living Helplines Fire safety Emergency Ambulance Emergency Response system
Isn't it odd that we have to call different helpline for different emergency needs? In Bangalore, the listed emergency helpline numbers are:
Source - www.bangalore-karnataka.com
Police - Dial # 100
Traffic /Accidents - Dial # 103
Fire - Dial 101 or 2942999 or 2251780
Ambulance - Dial 102 or 108
Jaydeva Heart Brigade - Dial # 1051
Rotary Life Saving Brigade - Dial # 1050
and so on.
Take an example, incidence of a road accident. Going by the official instructions from Bengaluru Traffic Police, it requires for:
Communicate at the earliest to the 100 providing the following information regarding the location where it has happened, if any injuries are there indicate them, call for the ambulance, note down the numbers of the vehicle involved. Disclose your identity and the name and contact no’s of your relatives.
Consider another example of an sudden Heart Attack or Epilepsy Attack. In medical emergencies, we may have to call # 102 or #108. Here is an ordeal went through by one of the Praja member - Ambulence Service - Pizza Delivery Faster than Ambulence
Ambulance didn't had anyone else other than driver, no oxygen, forget A/C. It was a tempo traveller with a stretcher and siren,
What this tells us is there is no such thing as 'Single Emergency Helpline' in Bengaluru, which is easy to remember and use it. Same is the story in every state, city and town.
Need for single emergency helpline
In distress situation can't expect citizens to deal with multiple agencies thereby losing precious moments. In life threatening situations, hard to get citizens remain clam, think and take right decisions. Moreover those are very tense and emotional moments requiring an easy and helpful resource. These are the moments which calls for an help who understand, uttering some comforting words and could take right decisions.
When such is the reality of those moments, system with multiple numbers to be called is certainly not the choice. World over countries have adopted single emergency helpline number and is doing wonders in saving lives.
Single emergency helpline number enables people to remember and use it to seek help in any life threatening situations.
Objectives of a single emergency helpline number
- Receive, recognize and locate the caller on emergency system from all major phone systems including cell phones, VOIP, Payphone Booths etc.
- Understand and determine the emergency by talking to the victim or the caller.
- Notify the appropriate agency to dispatch their emergency response teams.
Bengaluru city definitely needs to change over to single emergency helpline system. it can not afford to continue in the era of multiple helplines.
What should be single helpline number?
It could be anything that is easy to remember and use it. It could be just converting the existing "Dial # 100" into all in-one emergency number allover city, state and country.
In US, it is the famous 9-1-1. In Europe it is 1-1-2.
It doesn't matter as along as it is same all over and it works.
Some References
COMMENTS
idontspam - 25 November, 2011 - 02:53
Time has come for a single emergency helpline which takes responsibility of identifying & despatching appropriate help. This is the only way to get all departments to work together during an emergency & will also be hugely beneficial during disaster scenarios
kbsyed61 - 2 June, 2012 - 15:34
The best way forward and easiest thing to do is to expand and improve the 108 service. When 108 becomes the defacto emergency number that people start using, automatically 100, 101, 102 all will become defunct.
Any attempt to replace 100 numbers will be met with opposition. Therefore forget number 100, start dialing 108 for emergencies.
Mail exchange with Addl Commr, Traffic
murali772 - 29 May, 2012 - 06:50
Dear Dr Saleem
On Friday, I was at a meeting of a few RWA members, convened by the Namma Bengaluru Foundation (NBF), to decide on a common approach to the City Master Plan Revision (RMP 2035, as it is termed) being undertaken by the BDA.
During the round of introductions at the commencement of the meeting, Mr Sudhakar Varanasi, who has taken over as the CEO of NBF recently, stated that, prior to this assignment, he was with EMRI (GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute - the people responsible for the "108" service - http://www.emri.in/ ), having put the organisation together from scratch to where it is now, handling over 30,000 calls a day in Karnataka alone, a lot of them covering rural areas. On my probing about whether a "unified emergency number" system could be made practicable in the country, Mr Varanasi went on to say that the 108 service was indeed that. Now, on chacking their website, I notice that it says - GVK EMRI handles medical, police and fire emergencies through the " 1-0-8 Emergency service". To prove the point, Mr Varanasi made me call the number, to check out for myself, and I was pleasantly surprised with the positive and appropriate response.
The question then arises as to whether we should now be propagating this number alone as the unified emergency response number, instead of the confusing collection of numbers we presently have, each agency working on its own. Simultaneously, we could perhaps have all the other agencies pool in their resources to strengthen the 108 service too.
I look forwatd to hearing from you.
Dr Saleem (Addl Commr, Traffic):
Dear Mr Rao
Thank you very much for the mail. Your suggestions are good but 100 is used for police emergency services through out the country. Millions of people call 100 daily throughout the nation. Therefore making 108 a unified number is not possible. Many ambulance services use different nos like 102, 1066 1068 etc,. There should be a common no for ambulances. Police emergency no 100 is used for fire and ambulance servises also.
With regards, M.A.Saleem
I forwarded the above to a few PRAJA members, and their responses were as below:
SV:
This is an unfortunate response. It is a good point that nationally, people use 100 for police emergency services. However, nothing prevents the configuration of telephone services so that dialing any of the emergency numbers - 100, 101, 102, 108 etc. gets redirected to a single, unified, integrated call center. I am assuming that currently, each number goes to its own call center. Unifying those and adding the budgets can lead to so much better services, and the citizen has to remember just one number! Where there is a will there is a way.
SS:
Its just a turf war, you can see the way he has written he believes 100 can do the job just as well. Citizens dont mind if 100 is the number & 108 is discontinued. we just need ONE number not A PARTICULAR number but that one number has to take responsibility & accountability for closing all emergencies & calls. Apparently, 100/103 is staffed by people who are considered useless to the dept.
RD:
108 is a 'public-private' service set up for a specific purpose (under GoK Dept of Health and Family Welfare - Arogya Kavacha scheme). Same GoK has mandated these multiple numbers to be manned under Police and Fire departments. I think we should push GoK in general, possibly for a bill in the legislature to combine these services. Traffic Police cannot make this call by themselves.
Ravi_D - 29 May, 2012 - 08:46
.... here on Praja - see meeting notes here and here.
silkboard - 26 November, 2011 - 05:21
Yes, certainly required. One number can always redirect callers around, but there must be one number to remember, anywhere, in Bangalore, on State Highway 17, or on Nice Road, or National Highway 7.
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