When Meghalaya lawmakers decided to station ambulances in remote parts of the state earlier this year, they couldn’t have anticipated that villagers would use them as a taxi service.
When Meghalaya lawmakers decided to station ambulances in remote parts of the state earlier this year, they couldn’t have anticipated that villagers would use them as a taxi service. “Since the number is toll free and the ambulances are sure to respond, people in areas that aren’t serviced by buses or other forms of public transport call state medical emergency numbers. There’s no provision for penalising such callers,” says a senior health department officer. Authorities recently made it mandatory for callers to state the nature of the emergency. But villagers got around this too (mostly by describing a woman in labour). Authorities have now decided to respond only to calls made from the phones of village leaders. “The people the numbers belong to will be held responsible for fake calls,” says the official.
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