Objective: India has been slow in implementing a central emergency medical services (EMS) system across the country. “108 services” is one of the most popular services that is functional under the public–private partnership model. Limited available literature shows that despite access to services, many traffic crash victims are transported using private vehicles. The objective of this study is to understand the effectiveness of 108 services from a traffic safety perspective.
Method: A questionnaire survey is conducted to understand the awareness of EMS and their function. Using traffic-related fatalities as the dependent variable, a fixed effect panel data model is developed to analyze the effectiveness of the 108 services in improving the traffic safety.
Results: The results from the survey show that, in general, people are not aware of the 108 services. A majority of the population prefers taking victims to the hospital using their personal vehicles or any other vehicles available compared to calling an ambulance. Results from panel data analysis show that despite having an efficient system, these services failed to make significant improvement in the safety of road users in the states in which their services were subscribed.
Discussion: The lack of awareness of an important safety service is alarming. This could be a major reason for lower utilization of 108 services for transporting victims of traffic crashes. This article shows the importance of having efficient awareness campaigns to improve the efficiency of any similar programs that are aimed to enhance the safety of a region. 相似文献
To extend the current understanding of the mercury-mediated cytotoxic effect,five neural cell lines established from different animal species were comparatively analyzed using three different endpoint bioassays:thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide,3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay(MTT),neutral red uptake assay(NRU),and Coomassie blue assay(CB).Following a 24-hr exposure to selected concentrations of mercury chloride(HgCl_2) and methylmercury(Ⅱ) chloride(MeHgCl),the cytotoxic effect on test cells was characterized by comparing their 50%inhibition concentration(IC_(50)) values.Experimental results indicated that both these forms of mercury were toxic to all the neural cells,but at very different degrees.The IC_(50)values of MeHgCl among these cell lines ranged from 1.15±0.22 to 10.31 ± 0.70 μmol/L while the IC_(50) values for HgCl_2 were much higher,ranging from 6.44 ± 0.36 to 160.97±19.63 μmol/L,indicating the more toxic nature of MeHgCl.The IC_(50) ratio between HgCl_2and MeHgCl ranged from 1.75 to 96.0,which confirms that organic mercury is much more toxic to these neural cells than inorganic mercury.Among these cell lines,HGST-BR and TriG44 derived from marine sea turtles showed a significantly high tolerance to HgCl_2 as compared to the three mammalian neural cells.Among these neural cells,SK-N-SH represented the most sensitive cells to both chemical forms of mercury. 相似文献