When a family member collapses at home, the instinct is to call 108 and wait. In most Indian cities, that wait will outlast the drive you could have made yourself. A 2021 analysis by the Indian Journal of Emergency Medicine found median ambulance response times in urban India ranging from 18 to 28 minutes, well above the 10-minute window cardiologists consider critical for a heart attack. The gap between what the system promises and what it delivers is not a matter of bad luck. It is the product of five specific, repeating failures.
