By Express News Service
KOLLAM: Three days after the abominable incident in which a nursing assistant attached with the Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital misbehaved with an elderly bed-ridden patient named Vasu, Health Minister K K Shylaja paid a visit to the latter’s house at Punalur on Saturday.
While promising Vasu’s treatment will be of free of cost, the minister also added a directive has already been given to provide further medical assistance to him at the Punalur Taluk Hospital itself. “It came to my notice that despite his age, Vasu is the sole breadwinner of the family. For making a living he ignores his physical discomforts and is engaged in coconut tree climbing. It is on one such occasion that he had a fall. The government will consider if any solatium can be sanctioned to him,” said Shylaja.
While on her visit, after it came to her notice that Vasu’s daughter’s son had to discontinue his education due to financial constraints, the minister who is also handling the Social Justice portfolio, said the Social Justice Department will bear the expense of his education. She further directed the Anchal gram panchayat to complete paper works in this regard in a fast-paced manner.
It was on last Thursday that a video was widely circulated on social media in which a nursing assistant, identified as R Sunilkumar, was seen twisting and snapping the fingers of a bed-ridden patient. Following this, the Health Minister’s office besides suspending the nursing assistant also ordered a detailed probe into the incident. Vasu was admitted to the hospital on February 19 for hipbone treatment after a fall while climbing a coconut tree.
Earlier, the Minister said, at a time when the state government is engaged in the process of turning the hospitals in the public sector patient-friendly and as centres providing better health care, incidents like this could take the sheen away. Thus, those who misbehave with patients will have to face the music and the government will ensure the same, said the Minister.
