Ambulance abandons COVID-19 positive patient at late night in Karnataka

BENGALURU:  People are yet to get over the horrific incident of a 63-year-old COVID patient in Hanumanthnagar dying on the road while waiting for an ambulance for over three hours, but on Saturday, there was another horror of a 36-year-old COVID positive patient being abandoned by an ambulance on the road in the middle of the night after failing to find a bed.

The ambulance picked up the patient around 11 pm on Saturday and took him to Victoria Hospital. As there were no beds, the ambulance staff dropped him at Haj Bhavan, saying he would be admitted there. But the patient wasn’t allowed in and he was stranded from midnight till 2.30 am.

“I told the ambulance staff that I had breathlessness and fever, but still they dropped me there. I asked them to wait till I got confirmation on the bed, but they left me all alone. The guards at Haj Bhavan did not allow me in and told me to go back home. As I had no transport, I called my relative, who came after two-and-a-half hours as he stays far. My health kept deteriorating and I was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe,” he said.

“My relative took me to a nearby hospital, where the staff checked my oxygen levels and it was at 86. The doctor told me it was not too bad, prescribed medication, and asked me to go home as it was not a COVID hospital. I reached home at around 4 am. By then, I had put my relative and his family at risk,” he said. His relative also called Mercy Mission, who started dialling various helplines, but none helped. “We called the 108 ambulance, but they said BBMP had taken their service and we had to call back the Palike.

Then, we dialled 1912, but that did not get connected for a long time. When it did, they asked us for ICMR number of COVID patient and asked us to call 14410, which did not connect,” said Ruhi, a volunteer.
Around 8 am on Sunday, another ambulance picked him up and took him to Victoria Hospital. “The ambulance dropped me a kilometre away, despite me pleading with them that I could not walk.

I somehow reached the COVID block, but the staff told me that there were no beds. Around 5 pm, I finally got a bed,” he said. Randeep D, BBMP Public Health In-charge, said, “This incident shouldn’t have happened, and it shows the protocol is not being followed. The nodal officer is expected to coordinate with the hospital for beds and ambulances. We will soon have a centralised system for beds using a portal, which will help the patients.”

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