Port Blair, Sept. 13: Shri Vishal Jolly, Former State President, BJP has requested the Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Shri Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia to direct all private airlines operating in A & N Islands to admit/accept stretcher patients for undertaking to and fro journey on medical emergencies.

In his letter Mr. Jolly stated the following points for immediate intervention and early action:

The residents of A & N Islands don’t have any specialised medical treatment facilities to attend and manage with any medical emergencies due to lack of adequate medical infrastructures. Therefore, we are completely dependent upon the States like Tamil Nadu (Chennai) and West Bengal (Kolkata) for the purpose of undergoing any emergent medical treatment.

In order to reach Chennai and Kolkata for undertaking any emergent medical treatments, we are completely dependent upon Air India flights as no other private airlines admit /accept stretcher patients and consequently the Air India faces enormous pressure to manage all the patients of entire A & N Islands. Resultantly, the people of our Islands suffer while facing such emergent medical issues, which at times take away innocent lives.

Another big issue is the availability of tickets. It has become a usual problem that the patients, especially the stretcher patients are not able to avail journey due to non-availability of air-tickets.

Any patient required to undergo any specialized medical treatment at either Chennai or Kolkata are faced with exorbitant rates of tickets which becomes an additional burden on them as every patient is required to travel with at least one family member as attendant. This is apart from the huge medical bills which are unavoidable additional expenses.

The stretcher patients, wheel chair patient as well as any patient who are required to undergo specialised medical treatment should be given some subsidy on to and fro tickets or at least a flat fixed rate be fixed for them while undertaking journey.

Jolly stressed that the following issue requires personal intervention of the Minister for providing necessary relief to the Islanders.