DOHA MEMBERS of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) have called on the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) to look into the possibility of providing helipads along the highways so that help can reach accident victims faster.
They have also asked the corporation to get rid of old ambulance vehicles and provide more sophisticated ones that comply with international standards and specifications.
CMC Chairman Saud bin Abdullah al Hanzab stressed on the importance of providing entrances and exits as well as specific places where ambulances can move easily on the highways. He emphasised the possibility of setting up helipads on highways in future projects in the country.
He said that the helipads should be built with technical and engineering vision in order to facilitate the movement of ambulances to accident locations on time.
“The Lifeflight air ambulance is able to reach accident locations much easier and faster than car ambulances which are delayed a lot because of traffic congestion on some roads,” Hanzab said.
He said there would be no difficulties in construction of helipads for air ambulances on Salwa Road and other main roads in Doha, saying that the locations will be precisely defined proportionally so that they would not be far from each other.
“We need the helipads since there are many construction works going on, especially on the roads, which make the task difficult for motorised ambulances,” he said.
Adding his voice to the call, Mubarak bin Freesh, the member representing Gharafa and Aziguy area (21), suggested a number of proposals concerning emergency services at the HMC, stressing on accelerated implementation of the agreement between the Ministry of Interior, National Control Centre and Ooredoo on the adoption of a new system to immediately locate the place from where ambulance requests come. He, however, praised the HMC’s efforts in developing emergency services that regained the confidence of citizens.
On his part, Chairman of Qatar Society of Engineers Ahmed al Jolo pointed out that technically Qatar has numerous open places that are appropriate for helipads.
He explained that it would be easy to build such facilities on Qatar’s roads, noting that Shahaniya, Dukhan, Salwa and Shamal Roads need to be served by Lifeflight ambulances because of the high speed of vehicles on those highways.
Jolo said that with traffic congestion in Doha, the risk of accidents is less, which reduces the necessity to provide helicopter ambulances in the city. He emphasised that helipads should be constructed along the highways and not on Doha’s crowded roads.
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