In a shocking case of negligence, a toddler died just because the civil hospital ambulance that was supposed to ferry him to a Delhi hospital from Gurgaon ran out of fuel. Authorities in Gurgaon have constituted a high-level committee to probe the incident that occurred on Thursday. “The matter is under investigation by a high-level committee and action will be taken after it submits its report,” PTI quoted Kanta Goyal, the principal medical officer of Gurgaon Civil Hospital, as saying.
Three-month-old Avel was referred by the civil hospital for specialised treatment to Safdarjung hospital in South Delhi at 11 am on Thursday, PTI reported.
He was on basic life support system but the ambulance ran out of fuel and developed some snag and he died on the way. Avel was settled in the ambulance and given oxygen.However, when the driver tried to start the vehicle, it didn’t respond. The staff tried to fix the vehicle for another 15 minutes, by that time another ambulance had arrived from the General Hospital in Sector 10 at that time. However, around 10.20am, when the infant was shifted to the second ambulance, the staff noticed he was not responding.
The Gurgaon health department has 16 ambulances for two civil hospitals catering to over 25 lakh population and all of them are old and have run more than 2 lakh km. However, on the fateful day, there was only one ambulance available in the hospital at that time. According to Dr Goyal, the servicing of ambulances take place in a time-bound manner.
