RANCHI: After being denied treatment on the charges of spreading coronavirus in Purulia district in West Bengal, Hari, a rickshaw-puller, took a bicycle on rent and peddled 100 kilometers to Jamshedpur in Jharkhand with his ailing wife and seven-year-old daughter for treatment.
Doctors at Ganga Memorial Hospital said that the patient Bandini (29) was crying of abdominal pain and when she was examined, it was found to be a case of appendix burst which required immediate surgery. The doctors there operated on her free of cost and saved her life.
“When I took my wife to the hospital in Purulia, the doctors were not even ready to touch her and charged us of spreading coronavirus. They asked us to take her to elsewhere while she was crying of acute abdominal pain,” said Hari. He said he felt like committing suicide after hearing this from the doctors on duty, but somehow gathered courage and took her to Jamshedpur, he added.
“In the past, I had taken her to MGM hospital in Jamshedpur, but every time we went there, doctors would give some medicines and send us home. When the pain became unbearable for my wife this time, I took her to a local government hospital but was denied treatment,” said the rickshaw-puller. He said: “Looking at the agony of my wife, some of my acquaintances advised me to take her to a private hospital in Jamshedpur as the treatment at MGM did not work earlier.”
“Finally, after reaching here, people asked me to go to MGM hospital saying the treatment cost there is very reasonable. But when I came here, they treated my wife free of cost,” said the man. Hari said that his wife would also have died like many others, had he not brought her to Jamshedpur as there is no one to care for poor patients in West Bengal and people are left on god’s mercy.
Doctors said that Bandini was discharged from the hospital after she fully recovered and sent back to her home by a hospital ambulance after a week’s treatment.
“Looking at the seriousness of the patient, we decided not to wait further and performed the operation to remove her appendix as it had already busted and might put her in danger,” said Dr. N Singh who performed the operation. As Hari did not have money to pay for the rental of the bicycle he had hired, the doctor also gave him money for it and also gifted a bicycle, he added.
Dr. Singh said as he had lost his father due to lack of treatment before he started practicing in 1990 in Jamshedpur, he had promised his mother that he will not deny treatment to anybody for not having money.
Local MLA Saryu Roy also lauded this gesture saying that doctors are considered God in India, which has been proved right by Dr. N Singh. Roy also asked the corporate hospitals, which have been charging higher than the actual cost of treatment, to learn a lesson from Ganga Memorial Hospital.