A nursing assistant in Kerala’s most prestigious government hospital was caught on camera harming a patient recuperating after a surgery to insert a metal rod for leg injury.
The incident was reported from the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College in the heart of the state capital, where the male attender is seen in the visual to be crushing one hand of the patient.
The attendant, identified as R. Sunil Kumar, was suspended, according to hospital superintendent M.S. Sharmad.
The authorities acted on the matter after visuals of the incident circulated on social media, in which Kumar is seen taking the patient’s palm in his hand and crushing his fingers.
The bespectacled Kumar, who is wearing white medical gloves on both hands, is also seen talking angrily to the patient and threatening to slap the helpless victim.
Scores of people commented on this with one of them suggesting the accused should not be given any government job ever, and another wondering why he has only been suspended and not terminated.
State health minister K.K. Shailaja said such behaviour towards a patient was “unacceptable”.
The incident in the state capital comes only a few days after an ambulance driver was accused of angrily tilting a stretcher, causing an injured man on the stretcher to fall head first on to the road and suffer more serious injury. He later passed away.
The unidentified man suffered injuries in a road mishap and was being taken from Palakkad to the Thrissur Medical College when he became the target of the enraged ambulance driver and lost his life. Reports said the ambulance driver was upset with the injured man because he defecated while lying on the stretcher, during the journey to Thrissur.
Visuals of the man lying upside down on the stretcher with his head hitting the road and the other end of the stretcher still in the ambulance caused an avalanche of protests on social media, prompting police to register a case against him.
The unidentified victim was first hit by a passing vehicle, and was then being taken from Palakkad to Thrissur for expert medical care when he faced the fury of the ambulance driver.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
