COVID-19: Satara police vans turned into mobile ambulance

Satara: Maharashtra continues to be the worst hit state in terms of the highest coronavirus cases recorded with districts such as Pune, Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur, Satara and more witnessing a huge surge in the cases.

Now, Satara Police has come up with a very unique solution to make sure that people working in the force and other front line staffers stay at a lower risk of transmission. The Satara police converted police vans into an ambulance.

Meanwhile, the first dedicated COVID-19 Hospital for Police in Maharashtra was inaugurated on Sunday at Satara. It was initiated by the Satara Superintendent of Police Tejaswini Satpute under the guidance of Special Inspector General of Police, Kolhapur Manoj Kumar Lohia.

Talking to to Sakal Times, Satpute said, “Emergency services in time plays a vital role in life and the day we decided to set up such a centre, the first thing was ambulance facility. We initially came up with hiring rental services for our centre which was demanding rent per month Rs 1.05 lakh from private while other government services are available but considering the priorities of calls such services are given.”

She added, “I then thought about an ambulance via police van. Accordingly, our TATA sumo SUV was converted into a ventilator ambulance. We spent around Rs 1.60 lakh on car makeover and got a long run ambulance for life.”

This came up after, television journalist Pandurang Raykar died in Pune due to delay in treatment sans ventilator and cardiac ambulance.