Lifeline Foundation

Baroda based Lifeline Foundation has the unique distinction of being the only NGO globally to be working across cross-sectoral disciplines of Highway Trauma Care, Road Safety, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Occupational Health, Trainings and Bystander intervention education. Lifeline Foundation was co-founded by Dr Subroto Das (a Padma Shri Awardee) and his wife Ms Sushmita Das (after surviving a life threatening accident in August 1999 on one of India’s busiest highways), with the aim of reducing the 1,50,000+ annual highway deaths in India . Our internationally recognized efforts began with Highway Rescue Project (HRP) in 2002, the 1st Highway EMS across an entire state, popularly known as “Accident Helpline Number 98250 26000” in Gujarat. HRP subsequently expanded across 5 states – Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Kerala and Uttarakhand. In 18 years, we had intervened in 15,000+ vehicular accidents, transporting 20,000+ victims across 5029 km of highways. We have now started to phase out the HRP services. This is because Government now has the mechanism (through NHAI concessionaires) to evacuate accident victims, an issue that was earlier not addressed and NGOs like Lifeline Foundation had to fill in the gap. We, at Lifeline strongly believe that in a resource-challenged country like India, there should not be duplication of efforts. We have since shifted to a more inclusive highway accident relief; the current focus is on actively advocating Bystander First Aid & Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) trainings to enable common citizens to save lives in post-accident trauma and ‘out of hospital cardiac arrest’. We are India’s only training institute to have been recognised by Governments of 2 states - Gujarat and Rajasthan and also by American Heart Association for conducting Basic Life Support and Heart Saver courses. We embarked on the biggest bystander CPR training initiative ever conceived in India. A project titled “Vadodara, A Smart City, A CPR City” to train 40% of residents of Vadodara in bystander CPR may well enter the Guinness Book of Records; to empower individuals to respond to emergencies to save lives till ambulance arrives. We, at Lifeline are also working towards creating an EMS for industries, ports and mines across India. The vision is to integrate Occupational Health with a unified EMS for India, beyond roads and highways and be part of Pan-Asian Trauma Care systems. Based on our huge experience and expertise, we are mentoring industrial health professionals in India to institutionalise EMS in the Occupational Health sector; we are represented in various national and international policy making committees on EMS and are working with various EMS stakeholders in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Lifeline works continuously towards getting various stakeholders on a common platform; workshops and conferences are part of our vision to spread awareness and disseminate scientific knowledge in EMS, Occupational Health and Road Safety. In line with our aim towards universal health care, Lifeline is successfully scaling up these projects: Medical Appliances Bank (MAB) to provide rehabilitative support to the underprivileged. Effecta Jan Aushadhi Stores(Generic Medicine shops) under the Pradhan MantriBharatiya Jan AushadhiYojna Kendra for enabling easy and affordable access of generic drugs. Aastha Ambulance services for high-quality affordable secondary patient transfers.