RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Nov.27: The Jharkhand State Human Rights Commission (JSHRC) is required to be more equipped to serve its purpose.
It was realised after the commission, which is expected to take up cases of human rights violations without any delay to ensure justice, took more than two years to ascertain that a city-based hospital, Raj Hospital, violated human rights and accordingly ordered registration of an FIR against its owner Jogesh Gambhir and chief medical officer Dr Ajit Kumar at Hindpiri police station.
Violation of human rights took place in March 2019 while the FIR for the same was registered on November 24 this year.
Under Secretary Sunil Kumar Jha, who lodged the FIR, admitted the delay but justified the same saying a lot of exercises were done before taking the action.
“Before registration of FIR, a lot of exercises were done. Commission constituted a fact-finding team, which visited several places including Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS). Thus it took time,” Under Secretary Jha said justifying the delay.
An insider, however, said the commission does not have the required infrastructure for speedy disposal of the matter coming before it.
“Once visit the office of the commission and see how understaffed it is before talking about timely action on its part in the case of human rights violation,” the insider said, expressing his anguish at taking limited staff in the commission. He, however, did not tell the exact numbers of staff working there.
The case arose after the husband of Puja Devi, admitted on March 29, 2019, died at Raj Hospital due to lack of treatment. The situation arose when the hospital asked the lady to deposit Rs 1.5 lakh cash for treatment of her husband who had a severe heart attack during treatment in the hospital and the poor lady instead of depositing the case offered Ayushman Card, which the hospital refused to accept.
After the husband of the lady died, the hospital also showed reluctance in handing over the body and handed over the body to the lady only when she somehow managed to pay Rs 51000 to the hospital. The lady informed the incident to Jharkhand Human Rights Commission for appropriate action sharing the traumatic experience that she had from the admission of her husband for treatment in the said hospital to taking her husband’s body after his death. The Commission before coming to conclusion also sought a report of the director (health services) of the state in the matter.
After the action of the Jharkhand Human Rights Commission now the ball is in the court of Jharkhand Police. Thus officer-in-charge of Hindpiri police station Gyan Kumar was contacted to know about the action in the matter after registration of the FIR. When contacted in the evening he expressed his inability to share any development saying he was ‘busy in a meeting’ and the meeting was expected to ‘continue for three to four hours.’
Contacted the owner of the hospital, Dr Jogesh Gambhir, for his comment on the matter he expressed his concern over the development.
“Every month 200 to 250 patients are treated with the help of Ayushmaan Card in the hospital. As far as this particular case is concerned the patient was not admitted for treatment under the Ayushman Card scheme. Earlier, the health department had also probed the matter and had given us a clean cheat,” Dr Gambhir said.
