SRINAGAR: A patient suffering from serious cardiac ailment passed away at SKIMS, after the ambulance ferrying him there from Handwara, reached there late after it was stopped by traffic police for half an hour near Sopore.
The inordinate delay was allegedly caused after traffic officials kept the ambulance waiting for almost half-an-hour at Seelu Sopore. Police stopped the vehicle on the pretext of using a wrong siren, attendants accompanying the patient, alleged.
I was ferrying the patient from Handwara to SKIMS. As I reached Seelu Sopore, the police stopped me and opened all the lights and siren of ambulance. They kept the siren near ambulance tyre and asked me to break the same, Manzoor Ahmad, the ambulance driver working in Handwara district hospital told KNS on phone.
He further stated that the authorities made the ambulance wait for more than 30 minutes and that he repeatedly requested the officials about the critical condition of the patient but to no avail. I requested them several times that the patient is in a critical condition with a major cardiac attack but they made me to wait on the road side and smashed the siren.
According to a KNS report, 60-year-old Abdul Rahman Dar, resident of Yansoo Handwara was admitted in District hospital Handwara under MRD number 11408, dated December 9, 2013, after he suffered a cardiac stroke. The doctors at the district hospital later referred him to SKIMS, Srinagar.
The driver of ambulance bearing number JK05A 3402 was directed to ferry the patient to SKIMS on Monday afternoon. The ambulance was stopped by the authorities at Seelu Sopore. A senior officer in traffic department said the reason for stopping the ambulance was that the driver was using a wrong siren.
However, eye witnesses said that the authorities were busy in monitoring the traffic violations at Sopore and that the ambulance driver was stopped near Seelu by the officials on the ground of violating the traffic norms.
The attendants accompanying Dar said that the authorities, without any reason, made them to wait on the road side for half an hour due to which the condition of the patient deteriorated further. The doctors here in Srinagar told us that there has been inordinate delay in bringing the patient to the hospital but the main reason for this delay was the inappropriate attitude of the officials at Sopore, they alleged. We begged them to let us go but they didnt pay any heed, said a close relative of Dar.
When contacted, the Inspector General of Police (Traffic) Munir Ahmad Khan said that he will verify the facts.
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