Tehran orders crackdown as wealthy use ambulances to beat traffic

When the phone rang at a private ambulance centre in Tehran, Iran, a famous Iranian soccer player was on the line. The operator recognised him instantly and expressed sympathy for the presumed medical emergency in his family.

The soccer star laughed and said nobody was sick. He was requesting a reservation for an ambulance for a day to run errands around the city. He wanted to avoid the choking traffic that can turn a 10-minute ride into a two-hour trek. The money he was offering was equivalent to a teacher’s monthly salary.

For wealthy Iranians and even private tutors preparing students for national university exams, hiring an ambulance as one’s own private car and chauffeur has become the latest trend in a country with no shortage of time-consuming and frustrating traffic jams.

The practice is illegal. All the ambulance companies reached by phone this past week expressed concern that the abuse of the emergency services vehicles — with their ability to run through red lights and be allowed a clear path to their destinations — would create a serious breach of public trust and impede the speedy transfer of patients to and from medical facilities.

Many Iranians are calling for authorities to crack down, but the hiring of ambulances for nonemergency purposes continues.

Mahmoud Rahimi, head of Naji private ambulance service in Tehran, said, “Unfortunately, we get these kinds of calls, from rich people and from celebrities like actors and athletes.”

Rahimi said the company declines such requests because “our job is to transport sick people.”

“We are not a taxi service with a siren for the rich,” he said.

Tehran is a city of 14 million, and unregulated construction and development have turned it into one of the world’s worst places for traffic jams and the resulting pollution. Major highways can resemble a parking lot with stalled vehicles at any hour of the day.

The business of private ambulance services started about two decades ago in response to a shortage of government ambulances, which respond to emergency calls and transport only critically ill patients to hospitals.

© 2019 New York Times News Service