Venkaiah Naidu visit brings Kochi to a halt, doctors miss surgeries

Kochi: The extensive security arrangements put in place for vice-president M. Venkaiah Naidu’s visit to Kochi on Tuesday had not only put many people to inconvenience, but also resulted in doctors missing critical surgeries.

Take the case of Dr Arun Oommen who works at VPS Lakeshore hospital. He lives in Kundannoor, just 3 km from the hospital, and had to rush to the hospital to attend a patient who suffered serious head injury in an accident. However, he was stranded for two hours because of the vice-president’s visit. Excerpts from his Facebook post:

“I was stranded 2 hours travelling 3 km to hospital to attend an emergency call. Reason?

All roads completely blocked for hours on account of a VVIP’s visit to Kochi. Already plagued with heavy traffic and pathetic roads these sort of political gimmicks is a real curse to us all. The roads were filled with people cursing the VVIP and requesting him to go back. Even ambulances could not be spared in spite of persistent howling! Pathetic state of affairs. The police had nothing to do than being mere spectators.

It’s high time these VVIP culture is shown the door. Holding a whole city to ransom and causing so much hardships is totally unacceptable...

I strongly protest this atrocity!! Can anyone explain what the common people gonna gain with such show off? If this is the way we are being treated with any VVIP visit, please... We don’t want any such visits!