School students take up 'give way to ambulance initiative'

VISAKHAPATNAM: School students have commenced an awareness programme ‘Give way to ambulance’ asking public to make way for the passage of ambulances and not obstruct them in traffic to save patients’ lives.
Besides raising awareness among family, friends and neighbourhood, the students are also approaching influential people from various walks of life and making them to take pledge on further generating public awareness on the subject.
Elaborating on the awareness campaign, director of Oakridge International School Nalin Srivastava said, “In March-end, cricketer VVS Lakshman inaugurated this campaign at the school premises where 750 students from class I to 10 came forward to raise awareness among the public. The students have enthusiastically volunteered for the campaign and observed about the delays in ambulance movement due to traffic, spoken to hospital management and victims’ families, traffic department and ambulance drivers and found that survival rate of patients being carried in ambulances in around 70% and the ‘golden hour’ (time taken for the patient to reach the hospital and commencement of treatment from the time the accident or ailment struck) can save many lives.”
Some of the big names who have been roped in by the students to take pledge include Rear Admiral and MD of Hindustan Shipyard Limited L Sarat Babu, skater and entrepreneur Rana Uppalapati, Intach convener and heritage activist Mayank Kumari, ACP special branch K Prabhakar, former Union minister for civil aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju among others. The students have already got 3,500 pledges from public and prominent persons from the city and their target is to get 11,111 pledges by May-end.
R Anusha, experience manager of the students’ initiative said, “We have an ambulance almost every eight kilometres stretch and they are supposed to reach the nearest hospital witin 15-25 minutes with the patients. But due to traffic issues and vehicle drivers not giving way or obstructing the ambulance route, the patients are often brought to the hospital after 30-35 minutes. Every four minute of delay drastically reduces the survival chances of serious victims from 70 % to 7 % as every second counts. Students are focusing on this crucial life-saving aspects and asking public to keep the right lane free for ambulance passage.”