On Thursday (25.4.19), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has launched ‘Mission DELHI’, an emergency medical service, as part of which a motorbike-borne assistance unit can be quickly summoned for a person suffering heart attack or chest pain.

The pilot project has been launched in a radius of 3 kms around All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi and would be linked with Centralized Ambulance Trauma Services (CATS).

Under Mission DELHI (Delhi Emergency Life Heart-Attack Initiative), a pair of motorcycle-borne trained paramedic nurses would be the first responders for treating heart attack patients.

On getting a call, the pair would rush to the spot, gather basic information on the patient’s medical history, conduct a quick medical examination, take the ECG, and establish a virtual connect with the cardiologists at AIIMS and deliver expert medical advice and treatment.

While the emergency treatment is being provided, a CATS ambulance will arrive and take the patient for further treatment.

Even as the patient is on way to the hospital, doctors at AIIMS control center will evaluate the data received from the nurses to establish further course of treatment.

The attempt is to reach patients within 10 minutes. In this project, the clot buster will be given very soon even at home.

This project should not just be limited to ICMR and AIIMS.

Every major heart hospital in Delhi-NCR should take up this project and adopt area of 3 km around their hospital. All should be interlinked.

ICMR should provide them with the working model for implementation of the project for wider reach of this much-needed emergency medical assistance.

Dr KK Aggarwal

Padma Shri Awardee

President Elect Confederation of Medical Associations in Asia and Oceania (CMAAO)

Group Editor-in-Chief IJCP Publications

President Heart Care Foundation of India

Past National President IMA