With an aim to provide medical aid to accident victims within an hour of accident (golden hour), Maharashtra Highway Police (MHP) will launch ‘Mrityunjay Doot’ scheme from March 1. Local villagers, employees of Dhaba and petrol pumps, doctors around National and State highways across the State will be trained as ‘Mrityunjay Doot’ by the Highway police. This trained manpower will immediately provide medical aid to the accident victims. As part of the new system, the highway police officials have decided to create 1,000 groups of volunteers across the State that will provide immediate help to accident victims.

 

Each group will have a minimum of five volunteers. Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Traffic and Highway police, Dr. Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay told ‘The Hitavada’ that more than 1.5 lakh persons lost their lives in road accidents across the country every year. “More than 62 per cent lives of accident victims can be saved if they receive medical treatment within an hour,” said Dr. Upadhyay quoting statistics of accidents. Currently, it takes around 90 minutes to two hours to rush the accident victim to hospital. Locals will be the important part of the new scheme as they are the first respondents to any accident. The highway police will also rope in local police, local government bodies, health department officials in the initiative. All these ‘Doots’ will be given basic training on how to respond when there is an accident and would also provide stretchers to them.

 

The ‘Doots’ will also have phone numbers of local hospitals and ambulances. It may be mentioned that most fatal accident cases are witnessed in Nashik, Pune, Ahmednagar, Solapur and Latur. There are 98 national highways and 378 state highways in the State.

 

Rs 25,000 to hospital for treatment of accident victims Dr Upadhyay said that many times it came to notice that hospitals do not start treatment immediately for payment of bills. “We are contacting hospitals nearest to highways and elaborating them about the Late Balasaheb Thackeray Accidental Insurance Scheme. “Treatment up to Rs 30,000 will be provided free of cost from about 74 treatment procedures, including treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU) and ward, fractures as well as meals in the hospital under the scheme,” he said.