Rambalak was then forced to carry the daughter's body as he was allegedly not provided with an ambulance. Patna: A critically ill 9-year-old girl died at the AIIMS here, while her poor father was completing the formalities for her treatment.
Raushan Kumari, suffering from high fever for six days, died near the outdoor patient department (OPD) of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here on Tuesday.
Her father Rambalak and his wife, residents of Kajra village in Lakhisarai district, brought her to the AIIMS, where he was directed by the staff to get a registration card at the OPD counter.
While Rambalak, a daily wager, was standing in the queue at the counter, his wife told him the girl's condition had deteriorated. Rambalak then pleaded with the people standing in the long queue to allow him to get the formalities completed out of turn, but no one paid heed. He even pleaded with the clerk deployed at the counter, but was asked to wait for his turn.
By the time Rambalak left the counter after getting the registration done, his daughter had died.
Never-ending nightmare
To add to his agony, the distraught man was allegedly not even provided an ambulance by the AIIMS officials to take the body to his village. The hapless father was then forced to carry his daughter's body on his shoulder for nearly 4 km to an auto-rickshaw stand at Phulwari Sharif here.
Last year in Orissa, a video of a man carrying his wife’s body on his shoulder went viral and triggered a nationwide outrage. However, despite the outrage such incidents of official apathy continues to be reported from areas of the country.
The AIIMS director, Dr Prabhat Kumar Singh, said he had no information that a critical patient had died due to lack of treatment.
"As far as a registration card is concerned, doctors treat critical patients without it and later their registration is done. But I will inquire into this case if it has happened," he said.
Interestingly, Patna AIIMS does not have an Emergency Ward.
RJD demands probe
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad flayed the Nitish Kumar government for its 'apathy towards the poorest of the poor' which, he claimed, led to the girl's death, and demanded a high-level probe.
"Everything has collapsed in Bihar, including law and order, education, and health. The latest incident of the girl's death at Patna AIIMS vindicates our stand. There is no facility for the poor for treatment - they have been left to die, as happened in this case."
He also took a dig at union minister of state for health Ashwani Kumar Choubey, who last week reportedly suggested that patients from Bihar should be treated at Patna's AIIMS and not at the AIIMS in Delhi.
Choubey's alleged remark about Biharis 'crowding' AIIMS at Delhi even for minor ailments had drawn criticism from opposition parties.
Lalu Prasad said: "Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi have no time for genuine health issues. Both are busy showing their faces in media, more or less on the lines of prime minister Narendra Modi."
"Girls are dying for want of 'bhat'(rice) in Jharkhand and lack of treatment in Bihar," the RJD chief remarked, referring to the death of 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari in Simdega district in neighboring Jharkhand due to starvation.
Read more: Latest India news | Youth gets WhatsApp offer of $1L for killing Mamata
