Taking a serious note of the incident in which a COVID-19 patient was raped inside an ambulance, the Pathanamthitta district administration has decided to regulate the operation of ambulance services for COVID-19 patients during nights.
According to District Collector P.B. Noohu, only patients with serious health problems will be permitted to use the facility after 7 p.m. A decision to this effect was made during a videoconferencing convened by the Collector with officials of various departments here on Monday.
“If a patient has to be rushed to the hospital after 7 p.m, the decision will have to be made at the hospital level or else, the district administration must be duly apprised of the emergency situation. In such cases, steps will be taken to ensure the safety of patients,” the Collector said.
More ambulances during day
In view of the regulation in operating ambulances during nights, more number of ambulances would be required to transport the patients during daytime. To address the situation, it was decided to deploy 10 ambulances each at the taluk and block levels.
The meeting also decided to improve security for women employees in hospitals, especially during nights, besides entrusting the hospital superintendents and nodal officers with ensuring the safety of patients. The tahsildars have been directed to evaluate the issues pertaining to patients at the treatment centres and take help of Deputy Collectors to fix those.
Reports sought
Regarding the alleged security breach in the Aranmula rape case, the Revenue Divisional Officer and the District Medical Officer have been directed to submit detailed reports.
Meanwhile, the police here on Monday approached the District Sessions Court, Pathanamthitta, seeking the custody of Noufal, the ambulance driver accused of raping a COVID-19 patient, for three days.
While preliminary investigations suggested that the accused might have misbehaved with female COVID-19 patients on earlier occasions as well, the police are yet to receive any complaints to this effect. The police are also looking into rumours about similar incidents involving other ambulance drivers.
An 11-member team led by R. Binu, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Adoor has been constituted to probe the episode.
Official sources said even if custody was granted, the interrogation of the accused was likely to be delayed further in the absence of a certificate testing him negative for SARS-CoV-2.
“Though tested negative for the virus immediately after the crime, we will have to wait for another four to seven days to confirm if he contracted the virus from the victim,” said a senior police officer.
