For the last three months, fifty-seven-year old John Rose, a resident of Kanyakumari, has been traveling to Thiruvananthapuram to get his broken rib treated.
After he fell from an electricity post in January, the Tamil Nadu Electrcity Board (TNEB) worker who has diabetes and an underlying liver condition was referred to Thiruvananthapuram’s PRS hospital, as the border district of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu did not have the best health care facilities.
However, John’s treatment has now come to a sudden halt, ever since the lockdown started on March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Several medical tourists from the border districts of Tamil Nadu have since been reportedly stopped at Kerala’s borders and forced to return home.
“John was supposed to go meet his doctor on April 13, but was not allowed to do so. On April 20, we took a letter from the Kanyakumari MLA, JG Prince, and prepared to travel to Thiruvananthapuram. But although the Tamil Nadu police allowed us to go ahead, we were stopped at the Kaliyakkavilai border by the Kerala police and asked to return home. This has happened twice,” John’s wife Pushpam tells TNM.
She adds that when they asked the police why they were not allowed to cross over, they were told that it was the district administration’s order.
The incident comes just weeks after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s public statement that Kerala had not sealed its borders with Tamil Nadu, and that any such news was purely false.
“A fake news has been going around that Kerala dumped soil and sealed borders with Tamil Nadu as the number of positive cases rise there. Such a thought has never crossed our mind. We see our brothers who live next to us as siblings,” Pinarayi said in his press meet on April 4.
Congress MLA JG Prince from Colachel in Kanyakumari district says that close to 300 patients from Kanyakumari district depend on Thiruvananthapuram’s medical facilities as they consult hospitals such as PRS, Anantapuri and NIMS in Kerala’s capital city, which is only two hours away by road. Scores of patients, including those requiring emergency treatment such as dialysis and heart and kidney medication have now been stopped at the Kerala border and asked to return to their home, Prince alleges.
Prince has written to the Tamil Nadu government, asking for immediate intervention and resolution in the matter. “We are sending tons of food and essentials from Tamil Nadu. In this case, why is the Kerala government preventing us from availing essential medical treatment?” the MLA asks in his letter to TN government. The MLA says this is hypocritical on Kerala's behalf as the state had gone to the Supreme Court when Karnataka disallowed patients from Kasaragod to cross the border and avail essential medical treatment from Mangaluru.
Earlier this week, a 52-year-old heart patient allegedly died after being denied entry into Kerala at the Parassala border in Thiruvananthapuram. The patient’s condition had worsened and he was being rushed to the Alappuzha Medical College hospital from Tamil Nadu when the ambulance was stopped at the border. According to reports, the vehicle was denied entry as the patient’s attendants did not possess documents to show that they were seeking emergency medical treatment. The man who is a native of Karungappally in Kollam district passed away at a hospital in Tamil Nadu’s Nagercoil on the same day.