Ambulance driver ostracized in Odisha for carrying Covid-19 patient

Bhawanipatna: There are reports coming in across the country that  people who are attending to Covid-19 patients are being asked to vacate their homes. They are being discriminated against as they are perceived  as threat to the society due to the panic triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here is such an incident that took place in Kalahandi district, where an ambulance driver was denied  entry to the village by the fellow villagers and family members.

The ambulance driver identified as Banamali Sethi of Dadpur village near Bhawanipatna had shifted a coronavirus positive patient from the village to Cuttack. A youth of Beheraguda village in Golamunda block, with a travel history to Bahrain who had tested positive on Apr 4.

The administration requisitioned an ambulance from Maa Manikeshawari hospital in Bhawanipatna. Banamali working as a driver with the private hospital was initially reluctant to take the patient, but later on agreed and took the Covid-19 patient to Cuttack along with another driver on April 5 and then returned back the next day to his village, where the ambulance was santisied.

However, the villagers along with the family members did not allow him to enter the village and asked him to complete the quarantine period and get medically screened. Even the private hospital administration had fired him from the job.

Following this, Sethi has been residing alone in a night shelter near the village.

Although the health workers visited the village, explained and tried to convince and made them aware of Covid-19 and also explained that Sethi had taken all precautionary measures including wearing Personal Protective Equipment(PPE), but to no avail.