'World is Watching', Tweets IPS Officer With Receipt of Ambulance Bill Charging Rs 10,000 For 4KMs In Delhi

The viral post in social media brings the focus on the ambulance service providers in the national capital where an ambulance service charged Rs 10,000 for a 4km trip to carry critical Covid patients to healthcare facilities.

Image: @arunbothra

While the frontline workers including doctors and nurses have gone of their way to help the public in difficult times, the pandemic has also seen several others taking advantage of the situation where medical facilities are overburdened with states facing an acute shortage of ambulance services and medical supplies.

On one hand, motivating stories of doctors and nurses leaving behind their family to serve people battling for lives have brought cheers, there a few cases that has shaken our beliefs in humanity.

In certain cases, people are exploiting others' misery. One of the recent viral posts on social media brings the focus on the ambulance service providers in the national capital where an ambulance service charged Rs 10,000 for a 4km trip to carry critical Covid patients to healthcare facilities.

While forgetting the moral values, the ambulance service providers in Delhi is allegedly forcing the distressed citizens to subscribe to their unlawful demands.

In the latest tweet that has gone viral, IPS officer Arun Bothra, on April 28, shared a receipt given by DK Ambulance Service for payment of Rs 10,000 to take a patient from Pitampura to Fortis Hospital, a 4km distance. The officer said posted the receipt saying that the “world is watching our moral values.”

Bothra’s tweet showing overcharged ambulance fees garnered over 27,000 tweets and over 61,000 likes. Netizens agree with him on this besides sharing various similar incidents where medical facilities providers have allegedly blackmailed people during these harrowing times.

Now, Delhiites are demanding from the Delhi government to cap the per-kilometre rate that ambulances can charge, as is being done in states such as Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. As per the Times of India report, the rate for bigger ambulances in Rajasthan has been fixed at Rs 17.50/km. In normal times, the cost of ambulance use in Delhi is Rs 500 for the first 5km and then Rs 50-60/km after that.

India reported 3,86,452 new COVID 19 cases, 3498 deaths, and 2,97,540 discharges in the last 24 hours, as per Union Health Ministry. The Delhi Police has asked the municipal body in the national capital to find more sites to be used as crematoriums amid a rising body count due to the deadly second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The national capital recorded its highest ever deaths 395 Covid patients in the last 24 hrs.