False alarm: Ambulance used to transport files

Traffic on The Mall cleared for ambulance going to Town Hall.

LAHORE:

The city government appears to be using ambulances to ferry officials and files rather than patients, though that hasn’t stopped them from running their sirens to get past heavy traffic.

At around 12.40pm on Saturday, this correspondent witnessed an ambulance (LEG 1425), driven by a man who identified himself as Adil, make its way urgently through a choked Mall. The ambulance crossed red lights at three sets of traffic signals with sirens blaring. As it got near the National College of Arts, the sirens were switched off. The vehicle then entered the Town Hall and parked.

The driver, holding a plastic cup with what appeared to be fruit juice, stepped gingerly out of the ambulance, along with a man who identified himself as Ali and who said he was an employee at the district health office. Asked why they had been using the sirens on the ambulance when there was no patient inside, they said that they had been transporting some official files and so they had been in a hurry.

The Mall, a busy road at the best of times, is particularly choked with traffic these days due to the closure of parts of Ferozepur Road for the construction of the Bus Rapid Transit System.

Executive District Officer for Health Captain (retired) Inamul Haq, when contacted by The Express Tribune, said that he would look into who had been misusing the ambulance and would take action against those responsible. He said that they had issued circulars to ambulance drivers instructing them not to use the sirens except when transporting patients in need of urgent medical care. He said that such incidents would discourage people from giving way to ambulances in traffic, as they would not think that the vehicle was transporting a sick person.

Chief Traffic Officer Captain Sohail Khan said that traffic wardens had been told to always clear the route for ambulances and not to check whether or not they were actually transporting patients. He said that ambulance drivers should be educated on the need to reserve the use of the siren for emergencies.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2012.