Telangana: Patient dragged by feet in Nizamabad GH, probe ordered

Hyderabad: In an incident that came to light after a video went viral on social media, a patient was seen being dragged by his attendants at the Nizamabad government hospital. The person who shot the video was heard saying that they had to drag him due to the lack of facilities in the hospital.

The video triggered a political slugfest between the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the opposition parties.

“Is this healthy Telangana? Is it corporate medicine to drag patients on the ground? Is the lack of stretchers and wheelchairs the creation of facilities? A poor regime that cannot even provide a wheelchair to a patient with a budget of Rs 11,000 crores. This is not the ‘Healthy Telangana’ you are talking about, this is ‘Unhealthy Telangana’ that the public is witnessing,” said the YSR Telangana party leader YS Sharmila.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief Revanth Reddy shared the video on his Twitter account and asked whether this is the Telangana model that chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao was talking about.

“Isn’t it the height of negligence of the government to drag a patient in a Nizamabad government hospital like this?” he said in a tweet. He termed the incident a result of anarchic rule of the government.

Reacting to the viral video, health minister T Harish Rao ordered the district medical education (DME) officials to conduct an investigation.

According to reports, the patient’s relatives said that the former was unconscious and was kept waiting all night in the out patient (OP) department corridor. They alleged that the following morning, the patient was dragged into the room with no concern from the hospital staff.

In a press conference, hospital superintendent Prathima Raj said the patient was brought to the hospital on March 31 under the influence of alcohol.

“It was advised to the patient and his attendants to utilise the in house de-addiction in the hospital and they agreed to do so. We also provided a wheelchair,” said the superintendent.

She said that a hospital staff member, who was seen wearing the uniform, made the patient sit on a wheelchair.

“However, after sometime they dragged the him by the feet and some person shot the 10 second video,” the hospital superintendent said.

The BRS party members have shared another CCTV footage showing a wheelchair being given to the patient and pin pointed the opposition parties for spreading fake news.

The hospital has reportedly filed a police complaint on the person who shot the video.