Kerala :Patients suffer due to lack of transportation to Ernakulam Medical College

Kochi : Kalamassery Cooperative Medical College was upgraded to Ernakulam Medical College a year ago. However, transportation remains a bring problem in the area. The only means of transport to the hospital remain private buses plying on the route. The District administration and the state government remain indifferent to the situation.

The major difficulty in transportation remains trip curtailment of private buses. Though the Motor Vehicle Department has consented to provide ‘blanket sanction’ to private bus owners, no one has come forward due to problems related to profit sharing

“To get transportation from the medical college after 3 pm is a huge problem. Hundreds of OP patients are affected by this since they have no other means of travel. Though MVD has assured to divert the buses plying along the Seaport-Airport road to the hospital, nothing has come out of it. The 50 cents of land allotted for the bus station too remains underutilised,” said Principal, Sreekala, Kalamassery Medical College.

The MVD department has limitations, “As part of policy liberalization we can’t force private bus owners to start a service in this route. We have started taking action against the buses who curtail trips to the medical college,” said a top MVD official. He was off the opinion that the KSRTC can do something. He reveled that the KRSTC had given an assurance to start transportation to the medical college.

Meanwhile,G Balamurali, District Transport Officer, KSRTC said that they are yet to receive a notification from the medical college for the same. “Once we get a request from the medical college authorities we will take it up with top officials,” promised Balamurali.