Lack of ambulance service amidst lockdown, patient dies in Udalguri

A Correspondent

TANGLA: A 50-year old woman from Garuajhar in Udalguri district who had high blood pressure and was admitted on Wednesday morning to Tangla CHC, could not be shifted to Mangaldai Civil Hospital due to unavailability of ambulance amidst the lockdown. She died on Wednesday at about 4 pm.

Initially, she was taken to the government hospital in Tangla but seeing her critical condition the doctors referred her to Mangaldoi Civil Hospital. However, the relatives of the patient could not get the services of an ambulance despite calling 108 many times and neither could any private vehicle be hired due to fear of police action on violators of lockdown.

“The 108 ambulance service could not be reached due to server connection failure, resulting in the emergency numbers getting offline,” said the patient’s husband, Akbar Ali. “If ambulance could have been managed, my wife might have survived,” he rued. The attending doctors of the hospital refused to comment but said that the hospital did not have any ambulance.

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