The Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) of the 108 ambulance service attended to a total of 117 deliveries at houses of antenatal mothers and 45 in ambulances in Coimbatore district in 2021.
In November alone, the EMTs attended to 18 on site deliveries and seven child births in ambulances.
S. Selvamuthukumar, district programme manager of GVK EMRI which operates 108 ambulance services, said that EMTs are trained to handle deliveries in emergency situations.
“There are 155 EMTs working in Coimbatore district. GVK EMRI’s Emergency Medicine Learning Centre gives them training every six months to keep them updated. They attend to deliveries depending on the condition of the antenatal mothers and only if the situation demands,” he said.
According to him, many antenatal mothers fail to get admitted to hospital before the expected date of delivery due to various reasons. In some cases, labour pain starts before the expected date. The ambulance service gets calls when labour pain starts or in the event of other complications.
The ambulance crew rushes the antenatal mothers to the nearest hospital if there is enough time. They attend the delivery on site or in the ambulance when the labour starts and there is not enough time to shift the patient to the hospital.
The 108 ambulance services handled a total of 87,655 emergencies in 2021 out of which 21,509 were shifting of COVID-19 patients. The crew handled 14,243 pregnancy related emergencies, 1,532 cases of stroke/cerebrovascular accidents, 3,742 non-vehicular accident trauma cases, 10,785 vehicular accident trauma cases, 6,355cardiovascular cases and 1,082 cases of animal attacks in Coimbatore district in 2021. There are 55 ambulances of 108 service in Coimbatore district.