Sindh’s ICU on Wheels: SIEHS 1122 incubator ambulances have handled more than 5,000 neonatal emergencies, and over five years, its ambulances have provided ventilator support in 2,821 cases.
For nearly 11 hours, a 1122 ambulance crew in Karachi kept a premature baby alive inside their vehicle, as every hospital they approached refused admission because no incubator was available. The crew adjusted the baby’s oxygen, monitored temperature and kept the newborn breathing throughout.
Karachi faces a shortage of hospital incubators, and for a critically ill newborn, the time spent on the road between hospitals can decide the outcome.
What is ICU on Wheels?
ICU on Wheels is how SIEHS describes its 1122 ambulances: vehicles equipped and staffed to start intensive care before a patient reaches hospital. In a hospital ICU, the sickest patients are kept breathing, monitored and stable. According to SIEHS, each ambulance in its certified fleet carries 29 essential medical tools for the same job, including a ventilator, cardiac monitor, AED (defibrillator), suction machine, airway equipment and oxygen, and is staffed by trained emergency medical technicians.
Incubators: ICU on Wheels for newborns
For the smallest patients, 25 ambulances across Sindh, nine of them in Karachi, have been fitted with neonatal incubators. They keep premature and low-birth-weight babies warm and oxygenated, with breathing support, until a hospital bed is found. According to SIEHS, the incubator ambulances have handled more than 5,000 neonatal emergencies. For a newborn emergency, callers can ask specifically for an incubator ambulance.
Can you get an ambulance with a ventilator in Sindh?
Yes. The ventilator is the most critical part of ICU on Wheels. When a patient in respiratory failure cannot breathe adequately on their own, it supports their breathing during transport, in Karachi as well as in districts such as Larkana and Thatta. Over the past five years, SIEHS ambulances have provided ventilator support in 2,821 cases.
What is the ambulance number in Sindh?
It is 1122. The service is free, runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and covers all 30 districts of Sindh, in cities, rural areas and on highways. It is run by Sindh Integrated Emergency & Health Services (SIEHS) with a fleet of over 500 vehicles. Between August 2021 and September 2026, the service handled 44.7 million calls, responded to more than 135,600 road traffic accident cases, and more than 1,100 babies were delivered inside its ambulances.
SIEHS accepts Zakat, Sadaqah and general donations to support the service.
