Mystery over runaway patient

The attending doctor, Dr Raju Thackral, reportedly asked Khan’s mother to get Rs 6000 as fees by June 14. However, she arrived a day late only to find her son `missing’. Other patients informed that Khan was taken for dressing and he never returned, while Thackral allegedly dismissed her queries on the patient’s whereabouts saying `he must have run away’. The worried mother approached a social organisation Kurla Mahila Mandal for help. The mandal representatives informed that the hospital authorities lodged a complaint of missing patient (since 2 pm on June 15) only when they filed a missing person’s complaint.

According to the patient’s cousin Abdul, the patient was not offered a a bed in the general when he was admitted, despite several unoccupied beds available. “Besides, when he was too weak even to sit how can you explain his disappearance?” he asked. The hospital dean, Dr R G Shirahatti, too is baffled. He told Express Newsline, that he had questioned Dr Thackral four times after he received a complaint from the patient’s mother. According to Thackral, the patient had come in with a crushed knee which needed an amputation, besides the patient was an open case of tuberculosis and on June 13, he had issued transfer orders for him to be shifted to GTB hospital at Sewri.

Thackral’s also said on the night he was dressing the wound, Khan pleaded not to send him to Sewri since he wanted to go to Hyderabad, his hometown. The doctor apparently gave Rs 60 while a hospital worker offered help.The patient’s mother, however says her son wanted to go back to his business of selling clothes. She denied any knowledge about the transfer to Sewri hospital, further alleging that the doctor never showed her Khan’s case papers.

Failing to arrive at a conclusion, the Dean has instituted an internal inquiry into the case. He has also urged the Matunga police to treat the case on priority. On Thackral’s alleged demand for money, the dean said such claims are “not unusual in general hospitals.” However, according to hospital sources, there have been cases where accident victims with no proper home address are reported missing. Khan too was admitted under the `homeless’ category.