Guwahati, May 30: GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute, the provider of the 108 ambulance service in Assam, has alleged an increase in prank calls from 60 per cent to 80 per cent, causing much harassment of healthcare workers.

The officials have requested the people to refrain from prank calls as people who genuinely needed the services were being deprived.

"We have been getting many prank calls recently, ranging between 60 per cent and 80 per cent per day. It hinders our services and many people in need miss out. We request you not to make prank calls as our service is linked to the life of patients and every second is precious for us. If our call centre is busy with prank calls, the state's healthcare is affected," said Dhurjoti Prasad of GVK EMRI.

He added that as there were so many prank calls it was not easy to take legal action against the callers.

The pathetic connectivity had also prevented people from availing of the service.

The institute stated that since its inception in 2008, it had saved 1.36 lakh lives till April this year.

There are only 385 ambulances at its disposal under the Mrityunjoy service, 235 ambulances under the Adarani service and 316 ambulances in the inter-facility service in Assam.

It has handled 2.64 crore calls under the Mrityunjoy service and 67 lakh calls for the inter-facility service.

The Mrityunjoy service received an average of 8,100 calls per day. Altogether 28.71 lakh beneficiaries had been served till April.

Along with various medical emergencies, Mrityunjoy service has covered 11.38 lakh pregnancy-related emergencies, 4.6 lakh acute abdominal cases, 1.68 lakh trauma vehicular emergencies, 1.13 lakh cardio-vascular emergencies, 90,217 respiratory cases and 41,551 cases of suicide and poisoning or drug overdose till April.