The fire and rescue services on Wednesday night ran a unique relay spread across four districts to deliver medicines to a six-year-old boy in the city suffering from brain tumour.
The mission, which started around 7.30 p.m. at Thiruvananthapuram was successfully completed shortly before midnight when the medicines were delivered at the house of Alfey Nibin, the lone child of the couple Nibin and Deepa, at Tripunithura.
The medicines from a homeo clinic at Kazhakkoottam were passed on between the fire force personnel in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alapuzha and Tripunithura before it was handed over to the boy by local MLA M. Swaraj.
“Fire force collected a set of four medicines for consumption seven times a day from my clinic. The boy has been in my treatment for over four years and usually the medicines were couriered to the family,” said Dr. T.P. Anilkumar.
Nibin and Deepa were on an emotional wreck as they could not arrange for the medicines owing to the lockdown and they reached out to Kanivu Pain and Palliative Care Society out of desperation. The society in turn approached Mr. Swaraj and DYFI Tripunithura block committee.
“We contacted the DYFI COVID-19 helpline and were about to arrange for the transportation of the medicines using an ambulance when the chief minister in his daily press briefing on COVID-19 updates asked fire force to help deliver life saving medicines across districts,” said CPI (M) local secretary Rakesh Pai.
Following this, DYFI reached out to Thiruvananthapuram fire force officer C. Ashok Kumar who made arrangements to collect the medicines from the homeo clinic. They delivered it to the next fire and rescue team waiting for them at Kollam who passed it on to their counterparts at Alapuzha. They then rushed it and handed it over to Tripunithura station officer K. Shaji.
“We delivered the medicines in a relay to avoid the logistical hiccup of one of our vehicles coming all the way from Thiruvananthapuram and going back,” said Mr. Shaji.
