Dubai hospital waives off Rs 3.4cr bill of Telangana worker

Hyderabad: A hospital in Dubai waived a fee of Rs 3.4 crores of a Telangana worker and airlifted him to the state for further treatments, on Friday, waiving off another 4.04 lakh for the process.

Katla Ganga Reddy, 53, suffered a paralytic attack and slipped into a coma 6 months ago only to show signs of recovery in the last few months. 

He was admitted at the Mediclinic City Hospital in Dubai and was moved to the airport to be airlifted to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Shamshabad. He was then flown in an air ambulance to the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) at Punjagutta.

Consulate General of India (CGI) Dubai intervened to facilitate this movement and helped in waiving off the hospital bill, informed Gundella Narasimha, President, Gulf Workers Protection Committee (GWPC).

“The Consulate is happy to assist Ganga R K who was undergoing a treatment in Mediclinic City Hospital, Dubai since December 2020. After 9 months of hospital stay, he was safely repatriated to Hyderabad, India today in a stretcher facility along with a nurse escort,” CGI Dubai tweeted on Friday. 

Reddy who had been working in Dubai as a laborer for a company, belongs to the Suddapalli village in Pegadapalli  mandal of Jagtial. He fell ill on the 25th of December 2020 and was diagnosed in the same hospital which shifted him back to the country upon regaining consciousness. 

This is Dubai’s second humanitarian stunt of waiving off hospital fees of expat workers after their first in July 2020. Odnala Rajesh, another construction worker hailing from Venugumatla village in Gollapalli mandal of Jagtial district was admitted in the Dubai Hospital after testing positive for COVID19. He recovered 80 days later to a bill of Rs. 1.52 crore and an empty bank account. Gundella Narsimha and the Indian Consulate alongside a social worker, Ashok Kotecha, in Dubai were to the rescue. They helped waive off the fee and Kotecha provided them with free flight tickets and a sum of Rs. 10000 for pocket expenses.