BENGALURU: Nine survivors of the building collapse incident in Kasavanahalli, who are being treated at Stanford Speciality Hospital, are staring at a bleak future as they have no money to get back home after being discharged from the hospital. They have sustained injuries that incapacitates them from taking up construction, carpentry or painting work in the near future. The injured rue that no compensation has been announced for them.
They were all brought from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh on the promise of payment of `600 for every eight hours of work they put in. But they haven’t been paid for the past three months and now they cannot even afford a train ticket back home.
Jimlesh Paswan, a friend of painter Dhirendra Kumar, who crawled out of the rubble 12 hours after the collapse, told Express, “I am not finding the medicines prescribed for him and we don’t have money to buy train tickets to go back home. We lost our savings in the debris, we haven’t been paid, we want to go back home. Before that, I need medicines for treatment.” They are being treated free of cost at Stanford Hospital in Kasavanahalli on the assurance from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike that it will foot the patients’ bills.
Four days after the collapse, the survivors haven’t even been given a sponge bath. Twenty-one-year-old Vikas Kanaujia has paint all over his hands, face and hair. Hospital administrator Sylvia Victor said due to his spine injury, the staff has been instructed not to move him. The fact that Stanford is a fairly small hospital with limited staff and two to three survivors in a single room is not lost on any visitor. There is no helping staff like ayahs or ward boys at the beck-and-call of the patients unlike in bigger private hospitals. Despite its proximity to the building that collapsed, it raises questions on why the victims are not being treated in bigger and better hospitals where there is staff to keep them clean and hygienic to aid a quick recovery.
Vikas’ brother Vivek Kanaujia (23) told TNIE, “I arrived on Sunday morning. I will scrub him as long as it takes to get this off his skin.” His bed is strewn with stray rags collected from the collapse site. On request from a volunteer who was helping the patients with food, the dirty clothes were disposed of.
THE INJURED
Vikas Kanaujia (21): Injuries to his spine, fracture in right hand
Anil Nishad (19):
Lacerations on forehead
Amit Kumar (25):
Head injury and superficial wounds all over body
Ramesh (25): Severe facial lacerations, needs surgery
below his eye, fracture in hand
Ram Vilas: Fractures in both legs, cast till thigh level. Completely immobile.
Has been operated upon once
Mohammed Ansari: Head injury
Devendra: Injury to left
leg, needs surgery
Bande Nawaz: Superficial wounds all over his body
Dhirendra Kumar: Superficial
Ramesh, a carpenter, will be shifted to Narayana Health in Electronics City for an ophthalmologist’s advice after Shankara Eye Hospital asked for payment upfront which the labourers couldn’t.
Devendra, a mason, is in a brace for now. His relatives told TNIE, “The doctor said he will have to place a rod in his leg if he has to continue with masonry. If he quits the profession, then he can opt out of the surgery.”