Rohit Kumar
Port Blair, 13 September 2021
Mr. Vishal Jolly, Former State President & Core-Committee Member, BJP A & N Islands & Member, Home Ministry Advisory Committee, GoI requested Mr. Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia, Hon’ble Union Minister of Civil Aviation, GOI to direct all private airlines operating flights to and from Andaman and Nicobar Islands to admit/accept stretcher patients so that they can travel for medical treatment.
In his letter Mr. Jolly has put forward the following points for the consideration of the Hon’ble Minister:
- The residents of A & N Islands don’t have any specialised medical treatment facilities to attend and manage serious healthcare issues due to lack of adequate medical infrastructure. 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 airline(s) admit & accept stretcher patients and consequently Air India faces enormous pressure to manage all the patients from A & N Islands. Resultantly, the people of our Islands suffer while facing such emergent medical issues, which at times becomes the cause of death for many people.
- Even while returning back after undergoing emergent medical treatments from any state, the stretcher patients are not allowed to undertake return journey to Port Blair by any private airline(s).
- The patients regularly face another big issue and which is related to 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.
- Furthermore, any patient who is required to undergo any specialised medical treatment at either Chennai or Kolkata are faced with exorbitant rates of flight tickets which becomes an additional burden on them as every patient is required to travel with at least one family member as attendant and apart from the huge medical bills, he/she is burdened with these unavoidable additional expenses.
- Moreover, 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 roundtrip tickets or at least a flat fixed rate should be fixed for them.
Mr. Vishal Jolly through his letter has requested the Hon’ble Minister to direct all private airlines operating in Andaman and Nicobar Islands sector to start accepting stretcher patients on top priority basis. He also requested the Hon’ble Minister to direct private airlines to grant subsidy for patient and one attendant while availing journey for medical treatment at Chennai and Kolkata. He also requested the Hon’ble Minister to direct all airlines to reserve a minimum number of seats for travel by patients and attenders on every flight.