Police have registered cases against five hospitals in Kerala for denying treatment to Murugan, a road accident victim, who died in an ambulance on Monday.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has ordered a probe into the issue.
“Six hospitals denied treatment to Moroccan from Thirunelveli, after he met with an accident. The news is extremely sad. The Health Service director been asked to probe about it. After his report, further measures will be taken not to repeat such incidents. Since denying the treatment is illegal, a case has been registered against hospitals concerned,” CM wrote on Facebook.
Murugan, 46, a migrant labourer from Tirunelveli, was riding pillion on a bike when it met with an accident at Kottiyam in Kollam district at 10.30pm on Monday.
He was rushed to KIMS hospital where he was diagnosed with brain haemorrhage. Since there were no ventilator facilities there, he was taken to Meditrina Hospital in Kollam, but they declined to admit him, claiming that there was no neurosurgeon. Following this, he was rushed to Medicity Hospital in Kollam, where doctors refused to admit him.
He was then brought to Thiruvananthapuram Medical college 65 km away from Thiruvananthapuram, where also there was no ventilator facility.
Subsequently, he was taken to SUT hospital in Thiruvananthapuram and here too, they claimed there was no neurosurgeon and denied him admission.
Later, he was brought back to Kollam to Azeezia Medical College, which also rejected his admission for the same reason.
Finally, on the way to Kollam General Hospital, at around 6am on Monday, he died.
Police said that a case has been registered against all the five hospitals including the government medical college, except KIMS.
Police have recorded the statements of hospital staff, ambulance staff and have taken the CCTV visuals from all the hospitals.
"The patient was in the ambulance for at least 7 hours before he died. We took the patient to several private and government medical colleges, but none of them had ventilator facility. The patient died on the way to one of the hospitals and we took the body to the district hospital where he was declared dead. The ambulance has ventilator facility, but the hospital officials (Medicity) did not even bother to come up to the ambulance and check the patient," one of the ambulance drivers told Asianet News.
Murugan’s wife Pappa told Asianet News that what happened to him was injustice.
“He had come here to look after his family, what happened to us is injustice,” she said.
Murugan’s family reached Kerala on Tuesday and took his body.
He is survived by his wife Pappa and two children.