Surat cargo terminal turns life saviour for cancer patient

SURAT: After decades of confabulations, Surat finally got its

air cargo terminal

, and on Saturday, it proved its worthiness too amid the nationwide lockdown. Along with doctors from an Ahmedabad-based hospital, the domestic cargo terminal became life saviours when it could manage to deliver a life-saving drug to a cancer patient in Ahmedabad on time from Chennai.


Awaiting her next chemotherapy session at Apollo CBCC Hospital in Ahmedabad on Saturday, Chhaya (name changed), 51, was fighting twin battles — one with lymphoma, a rare form of blood cancer, that she is afflicted with and another with patience. She was in urgent need of the drug, which the family usually gets shipped from a foreign country, but the lockdown and closure of airports, made it impossible this time. However, the hospital took the responsibility to procure the drug, anyhow.

The drug is manufactured in the USA, gets imported to German distributor before it reaches Chennai via Hong Kong. So, they hunted for the first flight to land in Gujarat from Chennai and found one that lands in Surat. The hospital authorities immediately decided to bring the drug from Chennai to Surat and get it transported to Ahmedabad via road as soon as it lands at the Surat airport cargo terminal.

“The entire situation was handled with absolute precautions and safety,” said Abraham Lincoln, in-charge of cargo terminal. He informed that the terminal has handled about 400 tonnes of cargo during the lockdown period,.

Talking to TOI, Manthan Mehta of Apollo CBCC said: “I travelled by road from Ahmedabad but reached about an hour late. The terminal authorities were already waiting for us to hand over the life-saving drug. They first sanitized our vehicle and made us follow all the procedures at the airport before we were allowed to bring the drug safely to Ahmedabad.”

Dr Naveen Keswani, deputy medical director and CEO, Apollo CBCC said that the drug was extremely crucial as it the patient needed it urgently for chemotherapy. “We were helped by the airline and the cargo terminal authorities for getting the drug delivered on time. In these stressful times, our team’s combined efforts to get this drug to Ahmedabad on time, was successful.”

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