A day in the life of an Ambulance driver
Sujnan Herale spoke with Veerappa, an Ambulance driver in Bangalore
“108? EMERGENCY! Swalpa Bega Banni Sir!” is the last thing you would want to say over a phone call. And yet, few of us move to the side of the road when we hear the siren of an ambulance.
We live in a society prone to medical emergencies like heart attacks, deliveries, accidents and it is all a matter of seconds. There is a large community of ambulance drivers who commit themselves to save lives. The highly essential and time-bound service they provide is unfortunately mostly underrated and understated, and more often than not, hardly acknowledged.
April 2019. I was visiting Vani Vilas hospital near KR Market, as part of a college writing assignment. As I walked towards the entry counter, an ambulance rushed in and the patient was rushed towards the emergency ward.
That moment, I knew what I should try writing about. I walked up to the driver and asked him whether I could talk to him for a few minutes. He was more than happy to give me time. His name was Veerappa. It was quite sunny. We went looking for shade and found a tree nearby. The bonus was a vendor selling tea there. Veerappa and I got talking.
When I asked him where he was from, Veerappa said, “I’m from a small village near Hubli. We have been living there for generations now. We have been doing some decent farming, carpentry there. In recent times, mostly in the last decade, Varuna (the weather God) up there, in North Karnataka has not been happy with us.” Farming was affected and their local economy was in distress. Veerappa had to leave his village to find better opportunities.
When I asked him how he got into ambulance driving, he explained that he had a friend in Bengaluru who was in this service. Veerappa used to drive vehicles back in the village but didn’t have a licence. “I haven’t caused trouble to anyone while driving till-date” He smiles while justifying himself and his responsibility while driving. He later applied and got his drivers’ licence. Eventually he came to Bengaluru, with driving an ambulance still on his mind. Despite higher pay in the private hospital, he chose to work in a government hospital. It was helping the poor as well that mattered to him. Plus there was job security. “I was asked to come for the trials, and the tests went well. There were no complaints or negatives against me. I was approved but didn’t get a call to join.” He had to wait for nearly two months, until he finally got the call.
Veerappa explained his daily routine. He says, “We have 12-hour duties every day and are supposed to cover a 10 km radius assigned to us”. He starts from Yelahanka every day, at eight in the morning. He is often required to do double shifts if someone isn’t on duty that day. Having been in the service for five years, he says he has served double shifts, sometimes for twenty-four hours. “We, drivers, have an understanding among ourselves and nobody says no when required. It’s a public service we are doing anyway, so we have to sacrifice at times,” he says.
While Veerappa earns a salary of Rs.12,000 a month with limited incentives, he claimed the drivers who work for private ambulance get around Rs. 17–18,000 a month. The service on 108, for any patient, at any time in the day is absolutely free while private ambulances charge a minimal amount.
Ambulances are provided with sophisticated GPS and are regularly informed on the routes and the speeds they have to maintain. Within city limits, an ambulance can hit speeds up to 60km an hour, and higher outside the limits. Mahadevaswami, another ambulance driver says, “When the call is attended in the call-centre, they give us the best option depending on the patients’ need and the nearest hospital (that can accommodate the patient)” In April, a 15 month-old baby was taken from Mangaluru to Kochi in an ambulance. A distance of 450 kilometres was covered in just 5 hours and several records were broken, which helped the child get a successful heart transplant.
Sudhakar Varanasi, one of the early architects of Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), which provides emergency services in many states including Karnataka, explains how ambulance drivers are recruited. After the driving trials, applicants go through a mandatory fitness test. Once they’re qualified, they are taught how to assist ambulance technicians. For example, transferring the patient to the stretcher, holding the patient if an injection is necessary and things like that.
Sudhakar also emphasized on how crucial it is to keep the ambulance hygienic. He added, “The vehicle condition is regularly checked, that’s there. But once the patient is transported to the hospital and taken out of the ambulance, the driver should clean the inside of the ambulance, under the supervision of the technician. Before attending the next patient, it is highly important to make sure the ambulance is cleaned properly. Just like Hospital-Acquired-Infections, there are Ambulance-Acquired-Infections. Hence it is important to make sure, every ambulance is conditioned from inside as well before it goes on duty.”
Sudhakar also mentioned how the drivers are strictly instructed not to accept any (remuneration) from anybody, in any form and maintain the discipline of the service they’re providing.
With so much curriculum and regulations in place, ambulance drivers do not get a deserving paycheck. A lot of strikes have taken place for a hike in the paycheck. Demands were made to bring Ambulance Service under the National Health Mission rather than EMRI. In 2013, ambulance drivers held a strike demanding proper work hours and payment. In 2016, a driver was reported to have died of a cardiac arrest as he was assigned 72 hours of duty. The drivers agitated but were barely given any response by both GVK and the Health ministry
The ambulances are connected through GPS and the nearest ambulance available are sent to attend. “Lunch breaks, tea breaks… We don’t have anything like that. After transporting the patient to the required hospital, we have our lunch in the nearest stall so that we get back to duty as early as possible.” says Veerappa, highlighting their irregular schedule.
Bengaluru traffic doesn’t need an introduction and neither has it got better with time. Veerappa however, doesn’t feel it affects them much. He says people understand now and try to make way for them. He feels happy about youngsters these days, who attend accidents on-road without worrying about police cases. The judicial system too has been made liberal, keeping in mind the complications it earlier had, in order to encourage people to rescue people who get into accidents. As per the hearing of the Supreme Court against the petition of Save Life Foundation filed in 2012, The Government was instructed to pass guidelines that allow the Samaritan to leave the hospital without being questioned on any personal level.
After the detailed explanation, Veerappa asked me to check their Facebook page- Namma Chalakara Sangha Trade union and the reviews on it. Ambulance driving is different from normal driving. It isn’t just about time and traffic, but also about lives. There are a lot of instances where a child was delivered in the ambulance or when a doctor happened to save a patient only because the ambulance was on time. Ambulance service is something that deserves a lot of credit and the pandemic is only mirroring it. This is my small contribution towards putting some light on it and completing my assignment.
Sujnan Herale loves to meet lovely people at the local tea stall. “Let’s have a conversation on how to spell my name right.”
