Himanta Biswa Sarma carries one of the dolees at the launch of the service in Guwahati on Wednesday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati; July 24: This dolee (palanquin) will not have a purdah to hide the bride’s tears as she is carried away to her in-laws. In fact, this dolee will not even carry a bride. Instead, it will carry ailing persons in inaccessible areas to hospitals.

The Assam health department today introduced the dolees for areas where the 108 Mrityunjoy ambulance fears to tread.

Taking a cue from the traditional palanquin (dola), this dolee is more of a glorified stretcher. People working for the Mrityunjoy 108 ambulance service will use it to carry patients from their homes — if located in areas inaccessible to the ambulance because of bad roads and high altitude — to the ambulance.

“This is the first of its kind in the country,” said state health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the launch of the service here today.

Altogether 100 such dolees will be attached to 100 small Mrityunjoy 108 ambulances, which were launched today. Tata Sumos have been transformed into the new and smaller 108 ambulances. “The smaller ones will come in handy in areas that the bigger 108 ambulances cannot access,” Sarma said.

Besides the new ones, there are 280 Mrityunjoy 108 vehicles in service in the state. Recently, the government replaced 100 of them with new vehicles as they were beyond repair.

Sarma said the other 180 ambulances would also be replaced soon. He, however, added he was mulling using the old ambulances as hearses after they were repaired and modified.

The state government will have to spend around Rs 46 crore per annum to operate these 380 ambulances.

Sarma said the state health department was ready to introduce a service through which a patient undergoing treatment in a hospital can obtain an ambulance free of cost to take him to a nearest zonal apex hospital by dialling 102. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will formally launch the service on September 1.

Sarma said the health department would distribute 60,000 mosquito nets among the residents of Guwahati Municipal Corporation-recognised slum areas to prevent dengue. “Around 2,000 more mosquito nets will also be distributed in all government hospitals to combat malaria. Two nets will be given for each bed,” said Sarma.

Sarma said the health department would start adult vaccination from November in Sivasagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts to fight encephalitis. He said two years ago, the state health department had conducted adult vaccination as a pilot project in Sivasagar and recorded 86 per cent success.

The state health department also distributed motorcycles to 68 malaria technical supervisors working across the state.