Lucknow: Hard times often lead to hard measures but not heinous crimes. Uttar Pradesh’s hospital staff have been accused of beating a patient to death. The grave act was carried out after the man, a daily wage labourer, wasn’t able to pay the hospital bills for his treatment. This resulted in an argument between the hospital staff and the patient which ultimately lead to his killing on Thursday.
The incident has been caught on CCTV cameras installed in the hospital and the police is using the same to probe into the matter and carry out further investigations.
On Thursday, Sultan Khan, the victim, was met with an attack from the hospital staff with sticks in its premises which is in the Quarsi bypass area.
Due to difficulty in micturition (passing urine) since past many days, Khan had come to the hospital along with his nephew Chaman to get himself treated.
The nephew had queried regarding the treatment charges from the hospital prior to Khan’s admission. The staff allegedly said that it’ll be disclosed after an ultrasound is carried out, but according to Chaman, no ultrasound was conducted and the money was still collected from him.
“The hospital staff told me that they would tell the treatment cost after conducting an ultrasound but the hospital gave me a bill of Rs 5,000 for medicines without conducting an ultrasound. We paid the money,” he said.
The hospital staff later told them that per day charges of the hospital would be around Rs 4,000-5,000.
“As we were unable to pay this amount, we asked the hospital to discharge him. When we came out of the hospital after making the payment of Rs 5,000, a staff approached us and demanded that we pay them Rs 4,000 more,” Chaman said.
Chaman and his uncle requested the staff members to allow them to leave but instead, they started hitting the sick patient with sticks.
However, Dr. Danish Ali, a practicing doctor of the hospital, claimed that Khan had refused to pay Rs. 4000 and that the victim was the first to get violent by beating a staff person. “They attacked our staffer on this issue,” he said.
Meanwhile, the police recovered the CCTV video of the incident from the hospital. The footage clearly shows a staff member arguing with the nephew and later going inside the hospital to come back with sticks and more staffers to attack the victim. Khan can be seen on the receiving end of the attacks.
The patient’s dead body has now been sent for post-mortem.
According to the police, the relatives of the victim have not booked any case on the hospital or its staff till now. They said that investigation is underway.
“No FIR has been registered so far. We are probing the case,” said inspector ChoteLal from Quarsi police station.
During times when medical facilities are sought to receive treatment and get relief, such incidents rob people of their trust in healthcare centres.
