Bhopal: A day after a video surfaced on social media showing an eight-year-old Dalit child cradling his younger dead brother’s body and sitting near a drain, after the hospital administration refused an ambulance to transport the body, the Madhya Pradesh government issued a show-cause notice to the civil surgeon in Morena district hospital on Monday.
As per the home minister and the state government’s spokesperson Narottam Mishra, a show-cause notice was issued to the Morena district hospital’s civil surgeon, and financial assistance was provided to the family under various government schemes. “The government has taken the matter very seriously and the CEO of the Zilla Panchayat has been asked to submit a report within 24 hours,” Mishra told the press on Monday.
The 8-year-old boy is seen seated with the body of his 3-year-old brother on his lap as his family desperately looks around for an ambulance, as per a video going viral.
In the video the boy is seen seated on the ground, against a wall, waiting for his father to take the body home for cremation. The father is seen looking for a vehicle to take the body home as the hospital refused to provide an ambulance.
As per reports, villager Poojaram Jatav had brought his three-year-old son Raja to the district hospital. Raja was suffering from anemia, and succumbed during the treatment at the government-run hospital.
As the ambulance that brought Raja from Ambah Hospital had returned immediately, Jatav asked the doctors and staff of the hospital for a vehicle to take the body to the village but they refused, saying that there was no vehicle in the hospital, and asked him to hire another vehicle.
A hapless Jatav then came out of the hospital with the body of Raja, along with his eight-year-old son Gulshan.
On receiving the information, SHO Yogendra Singh reached the spot. He picked up the body and went straight to the district hospital. Soon, the hospital administration arranged an ambulance and the body was sent home.
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