Sure, it’s not the most ideal way to reach the hospital, but with the deluge of Covid-19 patients, Delhi authorities have allowed the famous three-wheelers to serve infected patients and contribute to the efforts to fight the pandemic.
Thus, the Delhi local government, in cooperation with the Turn Your Concern Into Action (TYCIA) association, has equipped several autorikshaws with sanitisers, face masks, and even oxygen cylinders as per the need.
In these times of crisis, conventional ambulances are hard to come by while families are expected to pay exorbitant amounts to private paramedics to take their infected loved ones to hospital.
“We all need to help each other in these difficult times to come out of this situation,” said Raj Kumar, Founder and Executive Director of TYCIA, adding in a press statement that “if everyone is staying home because they are afraid, then who is going to help those in need?”
“We are receiving calls not only from Covid patients, but also from frontline workers who are struggling to find transportation, as well as people suffering from other ailments,” he said.
Thanks to this new means of medical transport, patients with mild symptoms can benefit from “free” services to reach hospitals on time.
On social media, thousands of comments are pouring in to praise these services offered by tuk-tuk drivers, dressed in PPE, while putting up a partition separating them from patients.
The success of these mini-ambulances is such that TYCIA has received requests from other parts of the country to set up its services there, assures Mr. Raj.
The company plans to increase the number of these specialized tuk-tuks. “This is a time of crisis and everyone should do their part to curb the pandemic,” he said.
For several weeks, the Indian giant has been facing a tidal wave of infections sweeping across the second most populated country on the planet, literally bringing the entire health system to its knees.
The pandemic’s explosion is partly due to a “double mutant,” the new variant that is now causing concern in India and elsewhere because it is believed to carry two particularly potent and antibody-resistant mutations. Added to this are political and election rallies, and religious festivals including the Khumb Mela, which has brought together millions of Hindu pilgrims.
As a result, the situation is out of control and almost nothing has managed to flatten the curve of infections so far. The country that believed it had defeated the pandemic finds itself helpless, with no means of responding to the magnitude of the crisis and officials are looking with so much hope to the experts’ predictions that predict a peak in infections towards the end of this month of May before the wave begins to gradually weaken.
2024-09-18 00:05:34