In India, three-wheelers called 'autos' are becoming ambulances as the health infrastructure crumbles

The Delhi government along with the TYCIA Foundation launched 10 three-wheelers to ferry COVID-19 patients, for free, to nearby hospitals on May 6. And another 20 are on the way.But the terms and conditions, in order to avail this service, are that a COVID-19 patient must be having an oxygen level between 85 to 90 in order to be eligible for a ride. All of the auto drivers have been provided with personal protective equipment (PPE) kits and the auto rickshaws come equipped with oxygen cylinders and sanitisers. Javed Khan, a resident of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, has been running a free service to help COVID-19 patients. His auto comes fully equipped with an oxygen cylinder, a PPE suit for those helping a COVID-19 patient, sanitisers and basic medicines.In order to set this up, Khan had to sell his wife’s jewellery. While we all love stories of triumph against the worst of odds, not every story has a happy ending.On May 1, when he was going to pick up 57-year old Madan Singh to transport him from one hospital to another, he was stopped by the police. The cops did not allow him to proceed. Despite his protests that he was only transporting critical COVID-19 patients, the police detained him and held him in custody for two hours. Meanwhile, Singh died at the hospital waiting for someone to come and pick him up. Maharashtra is one of the worst-hit states in the country. In late March, when the number of new cases started to surge, one of the hotspots that emerged was the country’s financial capital — Mumbai.When Dattatraya Sawant, a school teacher and part-time auto rickshaw driver, saw the enormous rise in cases, he turned his three-wheeler into an auto ambulance for COVID-19 patients in northeast Mumbai. And he’s giving the rides for free. “I drop off corona patients to Covid Care Centre and the hospital for free of charge, and also bring discharged patients from the hospital and Covid Centre to their respective homes,” he told news agency ANI.The non-governmental organisation (NGO), Panah Foundation, was focused on helping migrants get their documentation in order to avail government benefits. But with the surging cases of COVID-19 in Gujarat’s capital city, the management roped in 10 auto rickshaws to act as ambulances to help patients get to a hospital.But the number of calls is so high that it has not been possible for them to reach out to everyone and the amount of time people have to wait is also increasing as COVID-19 cases surge. And the service is not available to critical patients. “We decided that we would start an auto rickshaw ambulance only for patients who need hospitalisation or need to go to the laboratory for testing or a high-resolution CT scan,” said Bhavika Bhogekar of the Panah Foundation. In the city of Belgaum, a 41-year old man named Manjunath Pujari has made a name for himself as being a nocturnal auto ambulance. And he’s been at it since long before the coronavirus pandemic.He has been ferrying pregnant women to people who have suffered a heart attack for nearly a decade. As the number of COVID-19 cases in the state surged, he began to transport those patients as well. “So far I would have ferried more than 300 patients to hospitals on various occasions,” he told The Better India. His efforts, appreciated by friends and colleagues, have earned him a place in the India Book of Records.Anguished over the tales of suffering on social media, Aziz Khan was heartbroken when he found that ambulance drivers were demanding upwards of ₹10,000 to drive a COVID-19 patient under 5 kilometres to a hospital.As an engineer, he decided to turn his bike into an ambulance for COVID-19 patients. And he figured out how to do it all online at an expense of ₹30,000. The bike ambulance has all essential medicines as well as oxygen cylinders to help in the transportation of infected patients. Two additional people can ride along with the patient, the driver of the bike and one attendant or family member.The only condition is that the family of a patient needs to refill the gas in the oxygen cylinder on the way back from dropping them off at the hospital.

In India, three-wheelers called 'autos' are becoming ambulances as the health infrastructure crumbles

Delhi government launches free auto ambulance service for COVID-19 patients

Man in Bhopal sold his wife’s jewellery to set up an auto ambulance — got detained by the police enroute to pick up COVID-19 patient who died

In Mumbai, a school teacher is giving free auto ambulance rides to COVID-19 patients

Auto ambulances in Ahmedabad are not able to keep up with the demand for rides from COVID-19 patients

Man in Karnataka giving auto ambulance rides to COVID-19 patients ranks in the India Book of Records for having saved more than 300 lives in his lifetime

It’s not just autos — an engineer in Madhya Pradesh created a ‘Jugaad Ambulance’ using his bike