The establishment of the help desk and information centre at SCBMCH will come as a boon to thousands of patients, but it has literally changed the life of a six-year-old girl Subhashree Mallick.
The little girl, studying on the verandah of the adjacent Biochemistry department building in the evening, drew the attention of Justice B K Mishra, who was here to inaugurate the centre. He went straight to the girl and talked to her for some time.
The girl narrated that she has been staying on the hospital campus with her maternal grandmother Bachchan Dei, who sells bottles for collection of blood samples to the patients. Her mother had died and father Rajkishore was a drunkard. She had come to her grandmother as her father used to beat her.
She is studying in Class II of a primary school in the vicinity. In the evenings, when Bachhcan is engaged in vending, she sits down on the verandah to study. Both sleep on the verandah in the night.
Justice Mishra then directed the Collector and district administration officials to take her under their wing.
“We have decided to shift her to Vasundhara Children’s home for her care and education. The administration will take up all her responsibility. Her grandmother would also be accorded old-age pension”, Collector Girish S N said.