KL Report
SRINAGAR
A patient suffering from serious cardiac ailment passed away at SKIMS due to inordinate delay created by ‘traffic’ cops keeping the ambulance halted for almost half-an-hour at Seelu Sopore on pretext of using a wrong siren, attendants said.
“I was ferrying the patient from Handwara to SKIMS. As I reached Seelu Sopore, the authorities stopped me and opened all the lights and siren of ambulance. They kept the siren near ambulance tyre and asked me to break the same,” Manzoor Ahmad, the ambulance driver working in Handwara district hospital told KNS on phone.
He further stated that the authorities made the ambulance wait for more than 30 minutes and that he repeatedly requested the officials about the critical condition of the patient but to no avail. “I requested them several times that the patient is in a critical condition with a major cardiac attack but they made me to wait on the road side and smashed the siren.”
The reports received by Kashmir News Service said that a 60-year-old Abdul Rahman Dar, resident of Yansoo Handwara was admitted at District hospital Handwara under MRD number 11408, dated December 9, 2013. The doctors at the district hospital after diagnosing the patient of having suffered due to major cardiac arrest had referred him to SKIMS.
The driver of ambulance bearing number JK05A 3402 was directed to ferry the patient to SKIMS on Monday afternoon. The ambulance was stopped by the authorities at Seelu Sopore. A senior officer in traffic department said the reason for stopping the ambulance was that the driver was using a wrong siren.
However, the eye witnesses told KNS that the authorities were busy in monitoring the traffic violations at Sopore and that the ambulance driver was stopped near Seelu by the officials on the ground of violating the traffic norms.
The attendants of deceased told KNS that the authorities without any reason made them to wait on the road side for half an hour due to which the condition of the patient deteriorated further. “The doctors here in Srinagar told us that there has been inordinate delay in bringing the patient to the hospital but the main reason for this delay was the inappropriate attitude of the officials at Sopore and we begged them to let us go but they didn’t pay any heed,” said Abdul Hamid (name changed), a close relative of the deceased attendant.
When contacted, the Inspector General of Police (Traffic) Munir Ahmad Khan told KNS that he will verify the facts.
