Mumbai: Cop finds innovative way to procure medicines for ailing colleagues

Some heroes don't wear capes, they come in khaki. This young policeman found an innovative solution to help colleagues and their families land free treatment at a defunct hospital in Kandivli East

Pramod Nimbalkar, 36
Police Sub Inspector, Samta Nagar Police Station, Kandivli

If you speak to policemen from Mumbai about efficiency, they will tell you that math is against them. The city's police force of 43,000 watches over a population of 1.8 crore. Earlier this year, the universe decided to throw another curveball their way. Not one concerning law and order, but health. During the pandemic and resultant lockdown, the Mumbai Police stood guard at containment zones, patrolled high-risk areas, and coordinated the distribution of food and essential supplies. All this, while being at equal risk of falling prey to the virus that was taking lives. "In mid-March, when the entire police department was assigned the COVID-19 duty, I jumped at the opportunity. I had moved to Mumbai from Nagpur only two years ago, so this chance mattered to me. I wanted to prove my worth," says Police Sub Inspector (PSI) Pramod Nimbalkar.

Hailing from Indapur village in Nagpur, Nimbalkar joined the state police department in 2005. After serving the force for 13 years, he got the chance to move to Mumbai in 2018. That he lived with his wife, eight-year-old son and three-year-old daughter in their Mira Road home meant he was also a risk to them, but Nimbalkar says his focus was on the job. As the virus spread, the city's health infrastructure bore the brunt. Beds were no longer available, ambulances and doctors were in short supply. There were stories of medicines selling in black at double the rates. Cases started emerging in the Maharashtra police in the second week of April. On May 6, the count reached 500, crossed 1,000 on May 14, 2,000 on May 28 and the 3,000 mark on June 7. "Seniors in the department were thinking on their feet, and someone suggested that we find a hospital that can be dedicated to the care of policemen and their families who had contracted the infection," he remembers. Nimbalkar learnt that Manav Mandir Hospital in Thakur Complex, Kandivli, had a capacity of 17 beds. While the nursing home's OPD was operational, the hospital was defunct and short-staffed.

Senior police inspector Raju Kasbe, who Nimbalkar reports to, spoke to Dr Milind Padval of Seven Star Multi-Speciality Hospital, asking if he could help. "The trustees of Manav Mandir were more than happy to give us their facilities free of cost. So just like that, by April, we had managed to convert the hospital no one wanted to go to into a COVID-19 care centre for cops and their families."

Nimbalkar was appointed the nodal officer for the project. At a time when there was a shortage of key drugs including Remdesevir and Tocilizumab, his job was to procure them easily and at accurate rates for ailing colleagues. "Samta Nagar police station has a force of 201, of which 45 had tested positive and were admitted at Manav Mandir. I would work through the day to ensure they got their medicine supply and nutritious food on time. I managed to get about 200 officials and their kin admitted to the hospital free of cost," he adds. His achievement got sweeter when everyone he had got admitted walked out of the hospital well. He smiles, "Not a single patient succumbed to the virus."

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