Intolerable cruelty: LNJP turns away two-day-old baby
20 Feb 2015 6:30 AM IST
Citing the lack of beds, staff at the government-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital refused attending to a poor couple’s two-day-old child. The newborn was brought to the hospital with a swelling on the back since his birth on February 17.
“I first approached the Delhi government’s Chacha Nehru Hospital in East Delhi, which referred us to the LNJP Hospital. Here, doctors asked us to take our child somewhere else as they did not have a vacant bed,” said Guddu, the newborn’s father.
“The doctor has asked me to go to the GB Pant Hospital, but my friends have advised me to approach social jurist Ashok Agarwal in the case,” said Guddu, a resident of Shastri Park in East Delhi. Guddu is a vendor and belongs to the Economic Weaker Section (EWS). As per the Supreme Court’s direction, regarding assistance to patients belonging to the EWS category, if a bed is not available in a private hospital, the doctor on duty is required to contact other such hospitals in the area and refer the case to them with prior information.
Guddu was asked to go to a private hospital in Patparganj on Thursday. “I waited there from 10:30 am to 3:15 pm. The receptionist handed over a registration paper to me and asked me to bring my child for a medical examination on Friday,” he said.
Aggarwal, a member of the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee for EWS patients in private hospitals, said: “They have not admitted him so far. It will be decided on Friday, but we are trying to build pressure on them.”
The couple does not have a ration or BPL card because of which the private hospital was initially negligent, but rules require only a self-declaration certificate of income below Rs 8,554 per month.
In August last year, Millennium Post had highlighted the plight of EWS patients in a series of three stories — ‘Hippocratic loathe! How top Delhi hospitals keep out the poor’.
“I first approached the Delhi government’s Chacha Nehru Hospital in East Delhi, which referred us to the LNJP Hospital. Here, doctors asked us to take our child somewhere else as they did not have a vacant bed,” said Guddu, the newborn’s father.
“The doctor has asked me to go to the GB Pant Hospital, but my friends have advised me to approach social jurist Ashok Agarwal in the case,” said Guddu, a resident of Shastri Park in East Delhi. Guddu is a vendor and belongs to the Economic Weaker Section (EWS). As per the Supreme Court’s direction, regarding assistance to patients belonging to the EWS category, if a bed is not available in a private hospital, the doctor on duty is required to contact other such hospitals in the area and refer the case to them with prior information.
Guddu was asked to go to a private hospital in Patparganj on Thursday. “I waited there from 10:30 am to 3:15 pm. The receptionist handed over a registration paper to me and asked me to bring my child for a medical examination on Friday,” he said.
Aggarwal, a member of the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee for EWS patients in private hospitals, said: “They have not admitted him so far. It will be decided on Friday, but we are trying to build pressure on them.”
The couple does not have a ration or BPL card because of which the private hospital was initially negligent, but rules require only a self-declaration certificate of income below Rs 8,554 per month.
In August last year, Millennium Post had highlighted the plight of EWS patients in a series of three stories — ‘Hippocratic loathe! How top Delhi hospitals keep out the poor’.
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