‘Every big hospital said try a big one… I asked how do we find a bigger one’

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The boy died the next day in the sixth hospital that finally admitted him.

“The first was Moolchand, they took him in first and then sent us out again. I am from a small town I don’t know names. Lakshman knew all the names, he was keeping track, arguing  with doctors. My daughter and I were just holding on to Bittu (Avinash) and crying,” Mallick said.

He said when they were at the “Nehru Place” hospital — Irene Hospital — Lakshman said he had “identified a contact in Batra Hospital”.

“In the Nehru Place hospital, the doctor kept telling us that Bittu was very critical, they would not be able to save him, and Lakshman was saying ‘please do something’. Then he got a phone call saying a contact had arranged a bed. Everyone was happy… In Delhi, nothing works without a contact,” he said.

Mallick said his daughter spent the night at Batra Hospital, holding and asking him to save her son. “She thought her father could help. What could I do? She kept begging the doctors to save her. At Moolchand, she told them that he had been playing a few hours ago, how could they say he was so bad (the child’s condition) that they would not take him.”

“After Avinash was declared dead, Babita (the child’s mother) kept saying she had to follow him,” Mallick said.
Neighbour Jayant Kumar Das said he got to know the family when Lakshman Chandra moved into a two-room flat in Lado Sarai and their sons became friends.

He said Lakshman had called him for help on Monday night. Das said after struggling for hours, Lakshman was told about a doctor in Batra Hospital. “He tried contacting him and was asked to come to the hospital directly. It was past 11 pm when we reached Batra Hospital and Avinash was admitted. It was because of contacts that we were able to admit him into a hospital. Otherwise, we would have roamed the entire city that night and the child would never have been admitted.”

“I got a call from him around 6 pm Monday and he asked me to come to Moolchand Hospital. He said his child was not well and he needed cash… They treated the child for two hours, but then the hospital authorities said there was no bed available and they cannot admit the child. We requested them to consider our case, but they refused,” Das said.

He said the family was asked to go to Irene Hospital in Nehru Place “We left Moolchand around 9 pm and must have reached in half an hour or so. We were made to wait for at least half an hour as the doctor was busy. Finally, when the doctor came and saw him, he cited helplessness, and advised us to go to a bigger hospital,” Das said.

“When we reached Batra Hospital, the doctors told us that chances of the child’s survival was very bleak… Only his father was allowed into the ICU, we all waited outside the hospital. We spread a bedsheet on the ground and sat there. Lakshman’s wife was praying… she asked me to save her child, but what could I do,” he said.