Locals set ablaze ambulance as patient dies in Odisha’s Puri

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Brahmagiri, Oct 8:

Irate locals yesterday set fire to an ambulance in Rebana Nuagaon village under Brahmagiri tehsil in Odisha’s Puri district after a 108 ambulance failed to turn up to carry a critically ill patient to the district headquarters hospital at Puri who died in the meantime.

A woman who had consumed poison and was undergoing treatment at the Rebana Nuagaon hospital was referred by attending doctors to the district headquarters hospital at Puri as her condition deteriorated.

As the ambulance at the hospital was in out of order condition, the relatives of the woman called up the 108 ambulance service.

However, the ambulance did not arrive in time and the woman who was in a critical condition expired.

“We had administered her with injections, saline solution etc and had referred her to the district headquarters hospital. They (her relatives) called up 108 ambulance but it did not arrive. The women died in between. The hospital’s ambulance is lying defunct for the last eight months,” said Badrinarayan Mishra, Medical officer of Community Health Centre, Rebana Nuagaon.

Following which angry locals set fire to the hospital’s ambulance which was in an out of order condition and was kept in the hospital’s garage.