Title - Railway withdraw doctors from trains

The pilot project of deployment of doctors in Duronto trains has not been found to be very useful for passengers due to technical constraints faced by medics deployed on trains, Lok Sabha was told on Thursday.

“In view of this it has been decided to discontinue deployment of doctors and para-medical staff in Duronto trains having a run of less than six hours,” Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said in a written answer.

However, it has been decided by railways to deploy a para-medic trained in Emergency Medical Response with all essential life saving medicines and equipment in place of a doctor in Duronto trains having a run of more than six hours.

All long distance passenger carrying trains are provided with First Aid Boxes containing essential drugs and dressing materials. In addition, augmented First Aid Boxes with wide range of medicines and disposable medical material have been provided with the train superintendents of Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express trains and guards of other nominated trains.

The frontline staff deployed on trains is trained in rendering First Aid. Services of doctors travelling as passengers are utilised to attend to passengers who are in need of urgent medical assistance.

Trains can also make unscheduled halts, if necessary, at the stations en-route in emergencies. The Station Masters have details of doctors, clinics and hospitals both government and private, in the vicinity of the station, so that their services could also be availed in emergencies.