On June 2, 2025, Noida, Ghaziabad and Delhi authorities coordinated a 17-kilometre corridor from Yashoda Hospital to Fortis Escorts Hospital, enabling a live donor heart to be transported in 19 minutes.
On January 8, 2025, Noida and Faridabad police coordinated a 46.4-kilometre corridor between Amrita Hospital in Faridabad and Yatharth Hospital in Greater Noida for the transportation of a kidney. The distance was covered in 24 minutes and 40 seconds.
The use of such corridors in the region also predates these recent cases.
On October 1, 2021, traffic police created a 14-kilometre corridor from the Delhi-Noida Chilla border to Jaypee Hospital in Sector 128, allowing an ambulance carrying a harvested organ to cover the stretch in 14 minutes. A separate corridor was also deployed that day between Sector 14-A and Jaypee Hospital for another organ-transplant-related emergency.
For healthcare professionals, the value of a green corridor extends beyond spectacularly short travel times. It is about removing avoidable delays at a point when the medical clock is already running.
Dr P N Arora, chairman and managing director of Yashoda Group of Hospitals, said green corridors could be “invaluable” when every minute matters, particularly during organ transportation and other time-critical emergencies.
He said their effectiveness depended on coordination between hospitals, police and traffic authorities, ambulance teams, airport authorities where required and transplant coordinators.
Pre-planning and regular drills could further help identify delays and improve responses before an actual emergency, Arora said, adding that drivers also needed greater awareness about why traffic was being cleared for such journeys.
“Though green corridors cannot replace time-critical medical intervention, they can be part of the solution to ensure that given resources are not wasted,” he said.
Dr Akhil K Rustagi, senior director and head of cardiology at ShardaCare-Healthcity, noted that green corridors were particularly relevant in cardiology because delays could affect outcomes in acute emergencies.
“From a cardiology perspective, timely transportation is particularly important in cases of acute heart attack, where delays in reaching a facility capable of providing definitive treatment can result in greater heart muscle damage and affect the chances of recovery,” Rustagi said.
He said the same coordinated approach could be useful when critically ill cardiac patients need urgent transfer between hospitals for specialised care.