Many stranded patients and their attendants belonging to Tripura have been returning home from medical hubs in southern States in hired ambulances during the COVID-19 lockdown. But a 60-year-old man died in an ambulance on a highway in Andhra Pradesh while undertaking a tedious journey of thousands of kilometres. The deceased, Sentu Dhar, is a resident of Kamalpur in Dhalai district of Tripura. Escorted by few family members, Mr. Dhar went to Chennai for treatment and was stranded there due to the lockdown.
“He [Mr. Dhar] died in the ambulance within the border of Andhra Pradesh. We are expecting the vehicle to reach here tomorrow [Tuesday],” a relative told newsmen on Monday.
Another relative said the family had hired the ambulance at a rental fee of ₹2 lakh to reach home, completing 3,000 km travel in five days.
Several families from the State took the ordeal of extensive journey and spent hefty amounts for hiring ambulances to escape the lockdown and return home. The lowest price for hiring an ambulance is ₹1.40 lakh, said a member of a family that returned home from Chennai on Saturday.
Police sources said four families, two each from Gomati and west Tripura districts, returned from south Indian cities over past week. All of them were quarantined as per the health protocol and the State’s COVID-19 task force was routinely monitoring their health condition.
There was no visible panic in Tripura after two coronavirus patients, a man and a woman, were cured and discharged from hospital last week.