The hospital has allotted parking space for ambulances, hearses and other vehicles but taxi drivers of Ghopa Taxi Entrepreneurs´ Association have been using the space as their private parking lot.[break]
“We are allowed to just drop patients at the hospital and not pick them from there. If we enter the hospital to pick patients after being contacted by the attendants, the taxi drivers do not allow us in and even threaten to beat us,” said ambulance driver Govinda Bisankhe.
The ambulances are chased away from the hospital premises immediately after dropping patients. “Nowadays they don´t even allow us to park ambulance outside the hospital gate. They ask us to keep our ambulances at our respective offices,” added another ambulance driver Tanka Lama.
The ambulance drivers claimed the excesses of taxi drivers have been going on for the past two-and-a-half years and the latter have recently even written to the ambulance operators to not park the ambulances inside the hospital. “We have complained to all ambulance operators including Red Cross but to no avail. We will stop working if the authorities concerned do not take any initiative to resolve the issue till Wednesday,” Bisankhe explained.
President of Nepal Red Cross Society, Sunsari, Basu Dev Gautam claimed he has repeatedly written to the District Administration Office, Area Police Office and BPKIHS administration but have not received any response. Registrar of BPKIHS Nanda Kumar Thapa said nobody can bar vehicles in the parking lot which is meant for all the hospital related vehicles.
“I called the ambulance drivers Monday to know their problem and have asked them to lodge a formal complaint to facilitate action against the guilty,” Thapa informed. “I have already given strict directives to the internal security body regarding the matter,” Thapa added.
Secretary of Ghopa Taxi Entrepreneurs´ Association Chhabi Lal Rimal, on the other hand, claimed that all the ambulances have not been barred from parking inside the hospital premises. “There are some drivers that are operating the ambulances on lease. These drivers stay put at the hospital all the time and even go from ward to ward in search of passengers. We have disallowed only such ambulance drivers,” Rimal claimed.
Related story
Ambulance with spotted deer caught by police
