Six of the eighteen cerebral palsy patients, who were undergoing treatment at Government Siddha Medical College Hospital here, were forced to leave the hospital on Tuesday night by the authorities without any reason even as these children had started responding to the month-long treatment given by two doctors.
After a customised treatment procedure of siddha practitioners Sriram and Anbu Malar, who have been deputed from Kanyakumari district to the Siddha Medical College Hospital here, on the children affected by cerebral palsy, yielded significant improvement, the number of patients brought to the hospital increased manifold in the recent past.
“Instead of celebrating the feat, the hospital authorities asked the doctors to stop the treatment being provided to the cerebral palsy patients. Moreover, they exerted pressure on us in different ways so as to push us out of the hospital premises. When they seized the kerosene stoves we were using for preparing hot water for giving hot bath to our children after applying the herbal plaster and herbal powder all over the body, the move was thwarted with the help of journalists. Against this backdrop, four patients, whose mothers had given interview to the media about the authorities’ attitude, were shunted out on Tuesday night,” mother of one of the patients now at the hospital said.
RDO enquiry
As the reporters informed Collector M. Karunakaran about the cerebral palsy patients being shunted out of the Siddha Medical College Hospital, he immediately sent P. Fermi Vidhya, Revenue Divisional Officer, Tirunelveli with her subordinates for an on-the-spot enquiry and asked her to submit a report to him on this issue. When Ms. Fermi interacted with the mothers of the cerebral palsy patients, they narrated the situation that was created by the hospital authorities on Tuesday night to shunt them out with their ailing children.
“When we were with our children in the maternity ward, we were asked to move to the already overflowing children’s ward and a few male and female patients, all above 60 years of age were brought to the maternity ward on Tuesday night. As there was no bed in the children’s ward, my daughter, a cerebral palsy patient, had to sleep on the floor even though chillness would badly affect the ongoing treatment and consequently the progress. Though a good number of beds in the general ward are vacant now and a few abandoned patients are living there for more than six years, the authorities are keen on ousting us from this premises,” said one of the affected mothers.
Discussion
Ms. Fermi also held discussion with the doctors of the hospital even as the Principal was reportedly away at Chennai. “Shunting out the cerebral palsy children is really a serious issue… I’ll submit my report immediately to the Collector. Until the hospital geyser is repaired, the patients’ attendants will be allowed to prepare hot water with kerosene stoves near the ward under proper supervision,” Ms. Fermi said.
