Although the Telangana government has not implemented any official bans on the entry of vehicles into the state from Andhra Pradesh or other neighbouring states, police personnel at the check posts set up at every interstate border were today seen turning away ambulances from outside the state.
The matter came to light after some ambulances were seen waiting at the Kodad border check post in the state's Suryapet district to be granted permission to enter.
The containment of the pandemic is reportedly one of the reasons for what local officials at the border districts claim is a standing "oral instruction". As a result, many other districts have also imposed similar restrictions - the Jogulamba-Gadwal police deployed at the Pullur toll gate barred all ambulances coming from Andra Pradesh. The vehicles, coming largely from the districts of Kurnool and Kadapa, carrying critical patients on oxygen support, were asked to turn back unless they had "confirmed" beds at hospitals in Hyderabad. This resulted in long queues of emergency vehicles at the border.
Many patients, waiting to be shifted to hospitals in not only Hyderabad but also Mahabubnagar for better treatment, were being asked to go back to AP after being told that neither beds nor medical oxygen would be available in the state's hospitals. Even the patients who had already "booked" beds were reportedly denied entry into Telangana.
Police personnel deployed at the various border check-posts have stated that they have "clear oral instructions" from their superiors not to allow any ambulances without "confirmed beds" to enter the state or travel to Hyderabad. Echoing this, Jogulamba-Gadwal Superintendent of Police Ranjan Ratan Kumar told the media that patients without confirmed "bed bookings" were not being allowed in as hospitals in the state capital were already facing an acute shortage of Covid-19 beds.
Things were no different at the districts bordering Maharashtra - in Mancherial and Kumara Bheem Asifabad districts, vehicles carrying patients were also sent back. Officials said that this was done so that the patients' attendants could make alternative treatment arrangements in their own states instead of having to run around in Telangana.
Meanwhile, officials posted in Adilabad claimed that the border along the district was not seeing too much traffic, to begin with, and that only a handful of ambulances carrying pregnant women or road accident victims were entering the state. Some stated that the border was open and that no restriction of any kind had been imposed on the entry of vehicles from any neighbouring states.
Officials in Bhainsa, a small town along the Maharashtra-Telangana border, said that while they were not "stopping" patients from entering the state, they were only "asking for documentation" before letting them pass.
In Sangareddy, which is along the Karnataka-Telangana border, police personnel claimed that no ambulances, irrespective of the patients' access to booked hospital beds, were being turned away. They were, however, being told about the shortage of beds in Telangana before entry.
Responding to the situation, officials from AP have reportedly requested the Telangana government to allow emergency vehicles to pass saying this would allow the patients being ferried to get lifesaving treatment.
While many are bound to see the decision to restrict the inflow of ambulances from neighbouring states as ethically questionable, others are likely to question the need for the move in the first place since officially, the Telangana administration has consistently, even vociferously, maintained that there is
no shortage of hospital beds in the state.