Dadar becomes 1st station in Mumbai with med room

MUMBAI: Nearly three weeks after the Supreme Court upheld a Bombay high court order directing directed Western Railway (WR) and Central Railway to start a pilot project at Dadar and provide all necessary emergency medical services, the emergency medical room was opened on Friday.
CR and WR worked together on the project as the station is used by commuters of both the networks.
The room has been set up on CR's platform 6 where the ticket checkers' office was earlier present. This is the first such medical room on Mumbai's suburban rail network.
A railway doctor will be present at the emergency medical room 24 X7. Railway officials, however, said that this would lead to a paucity of railway doctors in their hospitals.
The clinic is equipped with ECG and suction machines, in addition to oxygen cylinders.
Prior to this, Dadar, like all other stations, had a basic first aid kit which was kept with the station master.
An expert kit was also kept with the station master for use by a doctor or a paramedic, who were summoned through the public announcement system.
Samir Zaveri, director (accidents), Mumbai Suburban Railway Passengers' Association, said expressed satisfaction with the emergency medical room. Three years ago, Zaveri had filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay high court seeking medical facilities for railway accident victims. "Hundreds of lives could have been saved had the order not been challenged in the high court. As many as 55 accidents occur at Dadar every month and claim the lives of 25 people," he said. He said a lot of time was wasted due to this as the plan was to build such clinics at all the stations.