Paid price for helping a starving woman, says sacked employee

RANCHI: The kitchen employee of RIMS, who was sacked for allegedly serving food on the floor to a mentally challenged patient, said on Saturday that showing humane concern to the abandoned woman proved to be his undoing.

A photo of Munia Devi consuming food served on the floor had triggered a brouhaha and indignation, with state authorities ordering a probe and the high court issuing notices to officials, which finally led to the sacking of Chandramani Prasad, a contractual employee of the hospital’s kitchen department.

“I paid the price for trying to help a starving destitute woman. I gave her food out of humane concern, but little did I know that it would become my undoing,” Prasad told HT on Saturday.

“The woman was abandoned by all the doctors and was loitering hungrily in the orthopaedic department corridor for a fortnight,” he said, recounting how Devi was inconsistent in her responses about anything.

“Risking my job, I served her food on paper and on a plastic sheet sometimes. But she used to drop the food on the floor. So I stopped serving her rice and gave her roti and vegetables, which she ate holding them in her hands. On Tuesday, I had no rotis and served her rice in my own plate. But she dropped the rice on the floor and threw away the plate. I told her not to do so, but that did not cut ice with her,” he said.

Observing there were many such abandoned patients suffering from neurological problems loitering in the hospital, Prasad asked, “Would you not serve food to such people seeing them hungry for days?”

Prasad’s account reflected in RIMS director Dr BL Sherwal’s statement: “The mentally challenged woman was not a RIMS patient. The staff informed that she was given a plate but she used to defecate in that and the plate was removed. She was in the orthopaedic department corridor for months. Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry and Allied Sciences (RINPAS) has been requested to admit five such patients.”