Taking adverse view of rats chewing off flesh of patients admitted to two Government hospitals in Rajasthan, the intervention of the NHRC to recommend monetary compensation for victims paid off on Wednesday with the State Government offering Rs1 lakh to kin of one victim and Rs50,000 to another.
Finding it as a peculiar case involving dignity of human body, NHRC member Justice D Murugesan complained against State’s utter laxity that resulted in serious infringement of human rights. In one case, rats bit parts of a dead body carelessly left on the autopsy table while in the other case, the rodents bit flesh off a man admitted in the Intensive Care Unit.
Helping the cause of the victims who otherwise would never have imagined to get the monetary relief, the Commission wrote to the State demanding payment of Rs1 lakh to the next of kin. The State responded to the Commission’s letters and supplied proof of payment of Rs1 lakh to the husband of the lady whose dead body was bitten off by the rats, and the widow in the other case who got Rs50,000 for the injury caused to her husband, while he was admitted in ICU but did not survive.
The hospitals where the incident took place were situated in Bewar and Jodhpur districts. The first incident occurred at the Government-run Amrit Kaur Hospital, Bewar, where the body of Janta Devi, who died due to drug reaction in the hospital on January 11, 2012, was left unattended on the autopsy table. It was a lapse on part of the medical staff as corpses were to be kept in deep freezer section. Rats bit parts off her right ear and left eye. Following inquiry, the staff members of the hospital were terminated.
In the other case, the face of a 70 year-old patient Mohammad Iqbal was damaged by the rats in the night of January 10, 2012 while he was recuperating in the ICU of Mathura Das Mathur Government Hospital, Jodhpur. The incident resulted in excessive bleeding subsequently causing death of the patient.
The Commission observed that the lack of adequate care of the patient in the hospital resulted in violation of his human rights for which the State is liable. As the State refused to respond to Commission’s notice, the NHRC suo-moto ordered a monetary relief of Rs50,000 which was paid to his widow.