A representative picture displaying a hospital ward’s inside perspective. AFP/File:
The introduction of Punjab’s first air ambulance service would help to expand the emergency medical treatment available in the region. The provincial minister for specialised healthcare and medical education claims that training courses are in progress to equip rescue teams with the most recent abilities required for this service and air ambulances will be employed to guarantee quick medical help for important events on roadways.
Another top goal is making sure distant hospitals have doctors and medications available. With Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur ordering the initiation of the air ambulance service within four months, other provinces may also shortly establish air ambulance services. Like medical treatment in general, government-provided emergency medical treatment in Pakistan has historically been fairly poor and is sometimes augmented by charitable emergency care services like ambulances.
At least in big cities, this is the case. Therefore, the creation of an air ambulance service will offer those using the national roads some much-needed insurance in case of an accident or other medical emergency. Having such services in place during regular periods also enables the government to have operational emergency services in place to offer quick aid in cases of natural disasters and other unanticipated crises.
Having said that, one must overlook Pakistan’s greater need to expand the rural and remote healthcare system. Although emergency medical services in these places are much appreciated, let alone living in, throughout far-off areas, without enough hospitals, clinics, physicians and other related facilities near at hand providing necessary treatment to individuals travelling, let alone living in, will remain a remote prospect.
Without strengthening the whole healthcare system in the nation, suffering a medical emergency on the motorway, getting into an air ambulance and then discovering that the closest hospital is still hours away or lacks the necessary medicine or specialist will be a very real possibility. In crisis conditions, having this fast access to a range of health services becomes even more critical; this is a lesson the nation most definitely learnt the hard way following the 2022 floods when millions of displaced people discovered they lacked the necessary medical help.
Global NGOs like Unicef and the World Bank’s participation could have helped to avoid these situations from getting as severe as they could have otherwise been. Like many other debates on Pakistani healthcare, the issue returns to insufficient general healthcare expenditure. No new programme or initiative, no matter how creative it may be, can close the discrepancy between our health budget remains well short of the six percent of GDP advised by experts.