Medical train reaches Ranchi after gas leak diversion

RANCHI/DHANBAD: A special train with 1,148 passengers — mostly stranded patients and caregivers — reached Hatia station in Ranchi from the healthcare hub of Vellore in Tamil Nadu at 11.15am on Friday, eight hours after its scheduled arrival time. The train had departed from Katpadi junction in the southern city on Wednesday night and was scheduled to reach Hatia at 5pm, but it was delayed due to the diversion it had to take owing to the gas leak in Vizag on Thursday.
The passengers were stuck in Vellore since the nationwide lockdown came in force on March 25.The train was among the four Shramik special trains that chugged into various stations across the state on Friday bringing home close to 5,000 migrants.
At Hatia station, the Ranchi railway division and Ranchi district administration provided wheelchairs, porters and ambulances to assist the patients upon their arrival. “In all, blood and swab samples of 250 persons were collected at the station,” Ranchi civil surgeon Dr V B Prasad told TOI.
Among the passengers were cancer survivors and those with critical medical ailments. “Barring one passenger who complained of chest pain, no one complained of any health problems during the 36-hour journey. The passenger was immediately provided with medical care,” Prasad said.
A second special train ferrying stranded CMC Hospital patients and their attendants was scheduled to leave for Ranchi around 8pm on Friday, officials in Vellore said.
Meanwhile, three more Shramik special trains reached Dhanbad, Tatanagar and Jasidih railway stations on Friday. In all, the four trains ferried close to 5,000 people from Gujarat, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, railway officials South Eastern Railways, Eastern Railways and East Central Railways said.
Speaking to journalists at Project Building in the evening, chief minister Hemant Soren said several trains are scheduled to arrive from Gujarat, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and other states in between May 9 and May 12. “More than 5 lakh people have registered themselves on the Jharkhand Corona Sahayata App so far,” he added.
In Tatanagar, a Shramik special from Gujarat’s Rajkot arrived with 1,188 migrant workers at 12.30pm on Friday. “A total of 1,276 migrants were ferried from Surat to Jasidih station in Deoghar. The train arrived at 12:30 pm,” Nikhil Chakraborty, chief public relations officer of Eastern Railways, told the TOI.
In Dhanbad, a special train from Lingampalli in Hyderabad reached Dhanbad with 1,250 migrant workers and their family members on Friday afternoon. Dhanbad deputy commissioner Amit Kumar said 1,197 belonged to Giridih, 34 from Hazaribag and 19 from Dhanbad. All those coming to Dhanbad on Friday were sent to Dhanbad Sadar hospital for collecting swab samples. They will remain in quarantine till their test results are out.
However, this has increased the workload on Sadar hospital as the medical professionals posted there are not able to handle in the increased influx of workers. Several workers on Thursday complained that they could not give their swab samples due to huge rush and we have been directed to come on Friday. But the rush only increased on Friday creating lot of troubles for the workers.