KARACHI: The significance of facilitation of emergency vehicles in traffic and recent amendments to the Sindh Provincial Vehicle Ordinance 1965 were discussed at a seminar on ‘Saving Lives: Legislative Changes for Giving Way to Ambulances’ organised by the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (Szabist), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) here on Monday.

Sana Jafri, representing the Szabist’s legal team, walked the audience through the amendments to the ordinance. She said that they had redefined the ambulance from an emergency vehicle to also a law enforcement vehicle now. “Anyone now hindering or delaying an ambulance will be seen as violating human rights,” she said. She also said that there was a Rs600 penalty for failing to give way to an ambulance, for obstructing the movement of emergency vehicles and for following an emergency vehicle without keeping distance.

Providing some background, Dr Shoaib Mir of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre said that healthcare staff, especially ambulance staff, remains the most vulnerable of people in our society. “Heavy traffic and people’s usual attitude of not giving way to ambulances is itself a form of violence,” he said. “Even causing delay of seconds makes the difference between life and death, therefore the amendments to the ordinance were necessary for ensuring a safe and sure passage for ambulances.”

Dr Seemin Jamali, JPMC’s executive director, said the JPMC is a hospital situated in the hub of the city where traffic management was very difficult. “We need traffic management for the sake of our patients, who are the most important people here,” she said, adding that even though there was Sindh Provincial Vehicle Ordinance and the amendments made to it, there was still a need for executing the law.

She also pointed out that Rafiqui Shaheed Road where the JPMC is located has four hospitals and an educational institute so it can get very congested for ambulances. She suggested that they also open their Gate #1 to somewhat ease the pressure. “In the rush to get a patient to hospital, ambulance drivers also get yelled and screamed at, and beaten too,” she said.

Head of Delegation at ICRC Pakistan Reto Stocker said that seeing an ambulance ahead of him he wondered if it was transporting a child injured in an accident or someone having a heart attack. “Through research about the priorities of emergency vehicles such as ambulances they have found ways of making the right intervention and legal redressal so that those in their cars and on motorbikes could make a difference.

Head of Communications at ICRC Najam Abbasi said that ICRC was first invited to Pakistan by the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself for establishing refugee camps here in 1947. “Since then we have been providing aid alongside Pakistani authorities here during all wars and disasters such as earthquakes and floods,” he said. “But times have changed and now we try to help uplift local infrastructures through capacity building of hospital emergencies, by training doctors and surgeons for treating weapon bullet wounds , raising awareness, rehabilitating lives,” he said, adding that they started a programme about making healthcare safe in Karachi in 2015.

“If there is an attack on a doctor, its impact falls on the people he was treating and this domino effect doesn’t show up in the statistics. Therefore it is important to train healthcare staff to deescalate situations. In 2016, we started a three-month campaign to give way to ambulances that resulted in improvement which showed that people responded to awareness campaigns,” he said.

Karachi’s deputy inspector general of traffic police Javed Ali Mahar said that it was good to educate road users as spreading awareness helped people understand their responsibility and roles in society. He also said that distributing leaflets among people and putting up banners about the law could help make people better understand their responsibilities. He also said that the police were there too to play their own role in implementing the laws.

Sindh Minister for Works, Services and Prisons Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, the chief guest on the occasion, said that it was important to implement the ordinance and amendments to it in not just Karachi but the entire province. “But the first thing to do is spreading awareness of the issues and how to tackle them for which the media is also needed to play its role,” he said.

Praising the standard of healthcare being offered at the JPMC, he said that there were other hospitals too in the city where many patients came for medical care and the JPMC could help even more by joining hands with the healthcare providers in those hospitals.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2019