Emergency helpline down, Haryana man dies allegedly waiting for ambulance

The dead man’s neighbour dialled the SOS number to call an ambulance after the former’s health deteriorated. But the call could not be connected despite trying for over an hour.

A 50-year-old ailing man died in Haryana’s Fatehabad district on Sunday, allegedly due to lack of timely medical treatment as SOS number 108 for ambulance services was down at the time of crisis.

Jagdish Kumar, a resident of Haryana’s Fatehabad district, was taken to the hospital in an auto rickshaw after repeated attempts to call ambulance services failed. (HT Photo)

When the health condition of Jagdish Kumar, a labourer and resident of Swami Nagar area in Fatehabad town, deteriorated, his neighbour Bharat Kumar dialled the SOS number to call an ambulance. However, he could not get connected despite making attempts for over an hour.

Kumar said the patient was later rushed to the local civil hospital in an autorickshaw, where he was declared brought dead.

“As the civil hospital is about 4km away from our house, we decided to take the patient in an ambulance but the so-called emergency service failed miserably,” he said.

“All ambulances in Fatehabad are in good condition as they are new. Had we got the ambulance service at the time of crisis, we could have saved Jagdish’s life. The auto rickshaw took a long time due to rush of traffic on the road. The ambulance would have reached early as everyone gives way to it,” he added.

“Jagdish was in dire need of an ambulance as he was having breathing trouble. He could have got the facility of breathing apparatus like oxygen mask and respirator in the ambulance. He also vomitted blood at home and needed urgent medical care, though I don’t know what kind of ailment he was suffering from,” Kumar said.

Talking to media persons, ambulance fleet manager Kuldeep admitted that there have been some networking problems not only with the SOS number 108, but also in case of private mobile operators for the past 24 hours. “We have already written about the problem to higher authorities. The problem will be sort out soon,” he added.

Talking to Hindustan Times, Fatehabad chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Munish Bansal said he was not apprised of the matter by anyone.