HYDERABAD: The incident in which a patient was forced to use a toy tricycle after being denied a wheelchair as he was not able to pay ‘bribes’, exposes the sorry state of affairs at the state-run Gandhi Hospital here on Friday.
The patient, S Raju, said he was forced to move around in the toy tricycle after ward boys in the hospital demanded a bribe of `100 to provide wheelchair to him.
Raju, who hails from Rasoolpura, had been visiting the hospital for a follow-up treatment for the burn injuries that he had suffered in October. His wife Santoshi said they had paid `100 as bribe for a wheelchair in their earlier visits.
She alleged as she did not have money to pay bribe to the ward boys this time, he was denied a wheelchair and so he had to use their son’s toy tricycle to move around in the hospital.
However, Director of Medical Education Dr M Ramani said neither was any ward boy was asked to provide a wheelchair nor was the patient denied of it.
In a video which went viral on the net, the patient was seen sitting on the toy tricycle and Santoshi standing by his side.
Recollecting the trouble she went through earlier to get a wheelchair, Santoshi said she scurried to fifth floor where the burns ward is located to get a wheelchair. “By the time we reached the out patient ward, it was 12.30 p.m. and we were told to go away,”
Watch video of Telengana Director of Medical Education denying the hospital as refusing to provide Raju with a wheelchair:
Congress General Secretary, Digvijaya Singh in this context, took a jibe at Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and said that the latter who can spend crores on his house with bullet-proof bathroom, cannot even afford a wheelchair in the state’s government hospital.