Ambulance charges ₹8K to go 200m between hospitals

Ambulance charges ₹8K to go 200m between hospitals

Mohammed.Wajihuddin@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:07.06.2020

A Covid-19 patient was recently charged ₹8,000 by a private ambulance to transport her from one hospital to another 200 metres away in Kurla. A relative of the patient made a video of the driver insisting on the ₹8,000 and it went viral.

On Monday, Kurla resident Kabirun Nisa was admitted to Habib Hospital with symptoms of novel coronavirus infection. The next day, when the middle-aged patient’s reports came positive for Covid-19, the hospital told her relatives to take her to another hospital as Habib did not have the facilities to treat her.

“I called Just Dial and enquired about a private ambulance as the government ambulance was not available. I was directed to contact Mobile Care, an ambulance service in Jarimari. They sent an ambulance and said they would charge ₹10,000,” Mohammed Mudassar Shaikh, Nisa’s brother-in-law, said.

Shaikh, who had fought the BMC election on aSamajwadi Party ticket and lost from Ward No. 168, Kurla, in 2017, said the patient needed oxygen and a regular vehicle was risky. So, he bargained and brought the fare down to ₹8,000.

Nisa was transported in the ambulance from Habib Hospital to Fauzia Hospital, 200 metres away. After Shaikh got Nisa admitted to Fauzia Hospital, which has facilities to treat Covid-19 patients, he came down to pay the ambulance driver. “I told him to take a little less. We were ready to pay even for the PPE kits the driver had used. His owner, Mohammed Ismaeel, would not take less than ₹8,000,” Shaikh said.

Owner Ismaeel said most drivers had left the city in the lockdown and costs were high.

A relative of the patient made a video of the driver insisting on the ₹8,000 and it went viral