Two auto drivers ferry 200 Covid patients in two months
NILESHWAR (KASARAGOD): For the past two months, Harish Karuvachery (47) and Mayil Ratheesh (42) of Nileshwar have been running their autorickshaws like ambulances to ferry Covid patients to testing centres and first-line treatment centres. The drivers said they have ferried at least 200 patients in two months.
“But we are not running any ambulance service. We are just ferrying asymptomatic patients to testing centres or first-line treatment centres because there is a severe shortage of ambulances in Nileshwar,” said Harish. Yet, what they are doing makes them a rare breed. During the period, the duo tested twice for Covid, and the results were negative. The Nileshwar Taluk Hospital decided to assign Harish and Ratheesh the task of ferrying patients in August when the 108 Ambulance services were unable to keep pace with the rising number of Covid patients and suspects.
District Covid surveillance nodal officer Dr V Sureshan, who knew Harish for his humanitarian activities, mooted the idea with the hospital superintendent Dr Jamal Ahmed and health inspector Rajesh Thirthankara and the three decided to give it a shot.“There was a day when a positive patient had to be brought to the taluk hospital and no one was willing to pick them up. I gave a call to Harish and he immediately agreed,” said Dr Sureshan.
Later, Harish signed up Ratheesh too and now they work in tandem. The taluk hospital has given them masks, gloves, sanitiser, shampoo, and spray guns. They don’t wear a PPE kit, but that is not required, said Ratheesh. “There is a transparent plastic sheet separating the passenger cabin and the driver’s seat. We never come in contact with them,” he said.After every trip, they use the spray gun to disinfect the passenger cabin and wipe the seat with cotton gauze given by the hospital.
“I store the used gauze in a plastic ziplock cover and burn them when I go home,” said Ratheesh. Every day, they make at least six to seven one-side trips ferrying Covid patients or suspects to testing centres. “Sometimes we have to pick patients who have turned negative from first-line treatment centres. We have dropped patients even to faraway places such as Ravaneshwaran and Cheruvathur,” he said.
Harish and Ratheesh said what they do involves lesser risk than other autorickshaw drivers. “We know our passengers are Covid patients or suspects and we take precautions. But now Covid is so widespread that any passenger could be infected and the auto driver or the passenger may not be aware,” said Ratheesh, an auto driver for the past 12 years.
He had to sell his own autorickshaw in April because he was unable to pay the EMI during the lockdown. Now he drives around his friend’s rickshaw. Harish was gifted a new autorickshaw by his classmates -- the 1988-1989 batch of Rajah’s School -- last year when arsonists set his vehicle afire. He named his autorickshaw ‘Ormacheppu’ (Memory Box) as a toast to his school friends.
The two auto drivers charge only the regular fare from the patients. “Most of our patients are poor. And it’s not that we are doing anything different. We are just ferrying passengers,” said Harish, who could be seen at the auto stand near the Nileshwar bus stand.
On Saturday, he took six of a family to the testing centre at the taluk hospital and got them back in two trips for a fare of `400. “They called Harish after nine other autorickshaw drivers refused to take them to hospital,” said Ratheesh, who had to drop out after class VIII.
When asked if they could do it, why not other autorickshaw drivers, Harish said: “It has more to do with ignorance than fear”. Every night, he said, he had dinner with his wife Shini and two daughters Sneha and Sruthi. “We just need to learn to live with Covid around,” he said.
Humanitarian activities
District Covid surveillance nodal officer Dr V Sureshan, who knew Harish for his humanitarian activities, mooted the idea with the hospital superintendent Dr Jamal Ahmed and health inspector Rajesh Thirthankara and the three decided to give it a shot.