Unable to pay Rs. 400 to a private ambulance carrier, a migrant labourer in Punjab on Friday was compelled to take home the dead body of his father on a cart.
Sarbjeet, a resident of Krishna Nagar colony in Jalandhar, said he approached the hospital for an ambulance but later was denied by the hospital authorities saying that the hospital doesn't have ambulance facility to carry dead bodies home. Later he approached a private ambulance but it demanded Rs. 400.
"The driver of the ambulance demanded Rs. 400, but I had no money to pay. Later, one of my relatives brought a cart and we took the body on it," Sarabjeet was quoted as saying by a news agency.
Sarbjeet said his father Lal Singh, who worked in a local metal factory, had been undergoing treatment for chest infection in the intensive care unit (ICU) ward of the Shaheed Babu Labh Singh civil hospital since 7 May. His father died on Thursday.
The civil hospital administration said they only provide ambulance facility to bring patients to the hospital.
The incidents of administrative apathy continue to surface in Madhya Pradesh and Odisha where people were being force3d to carry the dead bodies of their relatives on shoulder after being denied ambulnce by the hospital authorities.
(With inputs from agencies)