Palamu admin cracks down on pvt ambulance drivers at MMCH

DALTONGANJ: The Palamu district administration launched a crackdown against private ambulances whose drivers park the vehicles on the premises of the state-run Medinirai Medical College & Hospital (MMCH) in Daltonganj to lure poor patients to private clinics in exchange for money payable per patient by the management of the private heal hubs.
Deputy development commissioner Ravi Anand and ASI Rishab Garg jointly visited the hospital on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday and found some private ambulances parked there with their drivers in the hospital’s lobby to lure the poor patients to private clinics.
“Around half-a-dozen drivers were detained by the town police station,” Garg said on Saturday.
Sources said the state intelligence wing of the police department’s special branch sent a communication to Palamu about the middlemen in the MMCH who are running an organised network to divert patients from government hospitals to private ones. Garg confirmed that they received inputs from the intelligence wing.
“We have reports of ward boys, trolley men and Sahiyas involved in this illegal network. Today’s action is just a warning and if it continues, we will take more punitive action,” he added.
The medical superintendent of MMCH, Dr Dilip Kumar Singh, said, “There is a group of private ambulances always pestering us to allow parking on our hospital premises. Though we keep denying all requests, they still resort to illegal parking to ferry the patients to private nursing homes.”