Family Shuns Ambulance Driver For Shifting Corona Patient In Odisha’s Kalahandi

Bhawanipatna: Even as reports are coming in of landlords throwing out their tenants working in hospitals due to the panic triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the family and fellow villagers of an ambulance driver have refused to let him enter the village in Kalahandi district.

The ambulance driver, Banmali Sethi of Dadpur village, had ferried a coronavirus positive patient from Kalahandi to Cuttack.

According to media reports, a youth from Beheraguda village in Golamunda block, with a travel history to Bahrain, had tested positive for the virus on April 4.

Sethi along with another driver from the district headquarters hospital had shifted the patient to Aswini hospital in Cuttack on April 5. He then returned to his village the next day.

However, locals including his family members did not allow Sethi to enter the village unless he completed the quarantine period and got medically screened.

Following this, he has been residing alone in a night shelter on the outskirts of village since April 6, the New Indian Express reported.

Meanwhile, health workers visited the village and tried to convince the villagers that Sethi had taken all precautionary measures including wearing personal protective equipment. However, the latter refused to budge on their stand. Sethi will now have to stay in the night shelter till April 19.