PM Manmohan Singh's security blanket caused the death of a kidney patient

We often face the problem due to security cover of VVIP's. Most common problem is traffic congestion. We need to wait for hours on a signal just to allow the VVIP move smoothly. Why always common man has to suffer?
While important people like the PM need to be given total security cover, there must be better ways of providing it. It’s bad enough when VIP security disrupts traffic on the roads for much longer than needed.
But when a city’s most important hospital becomes off bounds for patients urgently needing life-saving attention, it is totally unacceptable. If providing security to the PM on campus means disrupting the functioning of the hospital’s essential and emergency services, even for a few minutes, the function must be held elsewhere. Ceremonies are not and cannot be more important than saving lives — least of all for a hospital.
Read On ..

Prime minister Manmohan Singh's security blanket caused the death of a kidney patient at the gates of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGI) while the PM addressed a convocation inside.

Sumit Verma, 35, a kidney patient, was rushed from Ambala, 45 km away, after he developed a cardiac problem and needed urgent attention at the PGI emergency. But because of special security arrangements in view of the PM's visit, his van was made to shuttle between PGI's two main gates for over an hour and a half. The patient died before he could reach the emergency ward.

"We reached PGI when the prime minister had just arrived. The cops had sealed the road to the PGI emergency and we were told to use another gate. At the second gate, we were told to go to yet another place and from their directed back to the original gate. This delayed our reaching the hospital and Sumit died," said a family member accompanying the patient.

A large number of other patients, too, faced problems as they were barred from entering PGI till the prime minister left. Inside the hospital, the prime minister lamented that health services in the country were far from satisfactory. He exhorted the research scholars to uphold the motto of "service to the poorest and research for the good of all".

Source: DNA and TOI, 04/11/2009