COIMBATORE: The health department officials of the district plan to request the Road Transport Officials (RTOs) to conduct thorough checks on the fitness of private ambulances that have been discontinued from production.
The request comes after an incident where a private ambulance, using a vehicle which was no longer in production, experienced multiple breakdowns while admitting a heart patient to a private hospital on Mettupalayam Road in the city recently.
The officials who noticed the ambulance assisted the patient and sent him to the hospital in another ambulance. During the inquiry, it was found that it was a vehicle that was discontinued a few years ago and the owner of the vehicle had purchased it from another person. As a result, health department officials are urging road transport officials to implement stricter measures to ensure the fitness of ambulance vehicles.
Joint Director of Medical and Rural Health Services of Coimbatore district NN Rajasekaran said using such vehicles as ambulances is highly risky.
“A few private ambulance services and some private hospitals have been using such discontinued vehicles as ambulances. Due to its compact size, the operators prefer these vehicles to pass easily even during heavy traffic.
However, since they are discontinued, maintaining them is a challenge. As they are not officially in production, the spare parts for these vehicles might not be original. Therefore, they cannot be maintained with quality spare parts and proper service provided by the manufacturer. Deploying such vehicles to save the lives of the patients is a risk.
Therefore, we decided to insist the road transport officials to test for their performance and provide a fitness certificate,” said Rajasekaran.
“These ambulances often face problems due to lack of maintenance and service due to non-availability of original spare parts. Following the incident, we decided to ask road transport officials to tighten the fitness checking for such vehicles,” added Rajasekaran.