HC orders probe, seeks govt’s reply by Feb 25
RANCHI: Days after a woman died due to lack of treatment at Jamshedpur’s Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College and Hospital (MGMMCH) after her husband set her afire, the Jharkhand high court Friday took cognizance of the matter.
Amrita Kumari, a resident of Jamshedpur’s Bistupur locality, was allegedly set afire by her husband who soon fled away after committing crime on February 14. Neighbours, however, rushed her to the MGMCH but she, reportedly, died on Thursday morning in the want of adequate treatment.
A division bench of chief justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and justice Sujit Narayan Prasad on Thursday directed the member secretary of the Jharkhand Legal Services Authority (JHALSA) to conduct a probe into the matter and submit a report to the high court within a week.
Expressing shock over the lapses on the part of hospitals management, the bench ordered Jamshedpur deputy commissioner (DC), superintendent of police (SP) and hospital authorities to co-operate with the investigation. It also sought government’s explanation
as to what action was taken when the matter came to its knowledge. The bench sought government’s reply by February 25, the next date of hearing.
The matter came before the high court when advocate Anup Agarwal sent an email to the chief justice highlighting the gory crime and alleged lapses in treatment. He sought judicial intervention in the matter. Agarwal stated that the woman was brought to the hospital with over 90% burn injuries. Initially, she was not allocated a bed and had to undergo treatment lying on the floor, he said.
“Later she was given a bed in emergency unit and no proper treatment was administered to her. It was just a formality.The patient with severe burn injury should be admitted in hospital’s burn unit, which didn’t happen in this case. Prima facie, it appears serious lapses on the part of hospital’s management,” Agarwal argued, seeking a probe into the matter.
State government, however, informed the court that the burn unit of the said hospital has 20 beds. At the time when the deceased was brought to the hospital, all beds were preoccupied and there were 24 patients of burn injuries, the government said.