More than 200 ambulance drivers in Cumilla metropolitan city have no driving licence and vehicle fitness, running through secret contract for a long time.
It is learnt that there are more than two hundred ambulances in the private hospitals in the City Corporation area, including those adjacent to Cumilla Metropolitan Medical, Laksam Road Tower Hospital.
Rafiq, an ambulance driver, said that even though these drivers have been driving these microbuses for a long time, they do not need a driving licence.
And the police don't signal us to stop, they don't bother. As the car owners have a monthly contract with the police we have no driving problems and no case is prosecuted. Almost the ambulance with fitness does not have to renew the car documents for more than a century.
On the other hand, the ambulances that are parked in front of Comilla Medical College Hospital, Tower Hospital, they take advantage of the weakness of the patients and charge a fee of 500 rupees, 2 thousand or 3 thousand rupees, and a fee of Taka 2000 by paying a mandatory fee of Taka 8 thousand. They have to take the patient to the destination by ambulance.
Patients and relatives of patients in public and private hospitals are kept hostages by the ambulance drivers in Comilla city. Sometimes, it is observed that there are incidents of verbal disputes with patients' relatives in hospitals.
Besides, in different parts of the city, people are parking vehicles illegally on the roads in front of hospital and occupy the road from morning to late night as if there is no one to see.
Assistant Director of Comilla BRTA Mohammad Farooq Hossain said that date of most of the ambulance documents in Comilla are expired, many drivers do not have licence.
