Pune: The State Health Department has signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Save Life Foundation (SLF), a Mumbai-based NGO, to make the Mumbai-Pune Expressway as a ‘zero fatality corridor’. The department has issued guidelines for better medical care for emergency patients in a general resolution (GR) recently.

According to the GR, SLF will undertake the required research and studies to recommend measures required to strengthen emergency medical care for victims of road accidents that take place on the expressway. Both, the health department and SLF have agreed to jointly monitor the progress of the project.

The GR stated the Health Department will discuss the recommended interventions and implement the agreed upon recommendations to strengthen emergency medical care for victims of road accidents that take place on the expressway. Both the parties will also improve trauma care systems for road accident victims on the Expressway.

The GR further stated that both the parties have agreed to jointly undertake research studies based on data and records available with the State Health Department to develop evidence-based interventions to reduce fatalities and injuries on the expressway. 

The data and records may include information from 108 ambulance data from cases of road crashes, data from government hospitals in and around the expressway.

Speaking to Sakal Times, Dr Shrikrishna Joshi, Lokmanya Hospital which attends to casualties from the expressway said that the role of first respondents is very crucial. “Also, it is possible to make the expressway a zero fatality corridor. We have introduced a mobile trauma critical care unit and we aim to assist a victim not just in the golden hour but in the platinum 10 minutes to reduce the fatality rates,” said Joshi.