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Ctg ambulance strike holds patients hostage

Arun Bikash Dey, ctg
When Faruk Hossain asked his mother to get into the CNG-run auto-rickshaw, she looked reluctant-it hurt folding the broken leg. He felt the pain in her eyes but he had no choice.
"I have waited four hours after mother was released from the hospital but could not hire an ambulance," he said, while talking to The Daily Star in front of Chittagong Medical College Hospital, where she was treated for a broken left leg and had it bandaged.
"Now I have found an auto-rickshaw but I don't know whether I would be able to take
mother home safely, "he said, before heading for home in Rangunia upazila on Tuesday.
After Rahul Quader ranged up the ambulance driver, he took the call, expressed sympathy for the caller's ailing mother, but refused to make a trip on hire.
Rafiul finally availed a microbus from Katalganj, 1.5km from CMCH, and set off for home in Satkania upazila that evening. His elderly mother is suffering from kidney diseases.
"I called three drivers... but each of them regretted their inability," said Tanmoyz Bhowmick. He travelled to Laldighi Par, a microbus hub 4km from CMCH, and hired one to take his father home at Raozan upazila, the man told The Daily Star on Thursday.
These were some of the stories of the last few days since Tuesday when the ambulance owners and drivers launched an indefinite strike, protesting "harassment" by police.
The Chittagong Metropolitan Police conducted a raid on that day and cleared the road at the CMCH's east gate where the ambulances used to be parked "illegally".
The strikers and police are at loggerheads over a fixed parking space.
Unfortunately, the deadlock does not seem to go away shortly, with CMP asking the strikers to stop parking there, and the strikers demanding an alternative parking zone.
According to the protesters, police had seized two ambulances and detained two drivers, who were released later, during the raid.
Sources said a group of middlemen, mostly CMCH staff, who made quick bucks by hiring ambulances on behalf of patients, wanted the road for parking for their "business interests".
Humayun Kabir, general secretary of Chittagong Ambulance Drivers' Association, said they had been parking ambulances there for 20 years.
"Police conducted the drive and tortured the drivers on Tuesday without notice," he said. "We demanded that the authorities select an alternative stand for us but there was no response."
He mentioned that around 500 drivers and helpers of
200 ambulances in Chittagong district were passing inhumane lives with no income in three days.
Mohammad Akhteruzzaman, general secretary of Chittagong Ambulance Owners' Cooperative Association, regretted the patients' sufferings but said they did not have an alternative.
"We demanded that the authorities allow at least a few ambulances in the CMCH area because it is familiar to everyone for hiring one."
Regretting their inability, Anwar Hossain Liton, president of the owners' association, said, "We provide ambulances in any crisis moment....During the Bahaddarhat flyover tragedy a couple of years ago, we hired out 20 ambulances without thinking about who to pay.”
"We want a peaceful solution through discussion, and we would call off our strike as soon as the authorities select a parking zone for us in the city."
Commissioner of CMP Abdul Jalil Mondol said it was no parking place, and police conducted the drive following complaints from the adjacent Panchlaish residential area.
"Many inhabitants told us that their children get scared on their way to school or college seeing dead bodies being put there or taken into ambulances," he said.
"We asked the ambulance drivers to put signboards or stickers with their names and cell phone numbers at the emergency section of CMCH or in noticeable places adjacent to the hospital so that people could call them, if necessary."