THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The police have made elaborate arrangements to transport and deliver life-saving medicines to the critically ill and bedridden patients in the state, DGP Loknath Behera said here on Saturday. In a statement, he said the arrangements were made taking into account the curbs on inter-district travel in the wake of the lockdown imposed in the state. However, he made it clear that the service will be available only for delivering life-saving medicines.
As part of the initiative, special vehicles have been arranged in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. The medicines will be transported from one district to other in highway patrol vehicles. IG (South zone) Harshitha Attaluri is the state nodal officer. The movement of medicines will be monitored from a centralised facility of the highway alert cell functioning at police headquarters.
For availing the service, people can call 112. Once the call is received, the officers concerned will note down the name, address, phone number and respective police stations. Then they will inform the nodal officer, who will instruct the respective police officers to deliver the medicines using highway patrol vehicles to the needy.
The medical college police station and Central police station in Kochi will function as medicine collection centres. The doctors, health workers or relatives of patients who want to get medicines delivered to patients can bring them to the collection centres. The respective district police chiefs will be entrusted with the distribution of medicines if the requirement comes within the district itself. The delivery officers should be careful to ensure that the medicines would be delivered at the correct address, Behera said in the statement.