Shillong, July 24 : Meghalaya Health Minister, Ampareen Lyngdoh said that she had sought a report from NEIGRIHMS director, Nalin Mehta over the allegation of improper treatment of an accident victim at the institute.
While speaking to reporters here on Monday, Lyngdoh expressed her concern over the incident and emphasised the need for a thorough investigation to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future.
She said that she was informed on the day of occurrence of the unfortunate incident that there were junior doctors already on duty that evening adding that there were medical officers attending to the patient.
“In order to understand the situation completely, I have requested the director of NEIGRIHMS to share with me information on what preceded the conflict that occurred in the groups. And what were the reasons that there was a loss of life in this entire conflict,” she said. I
Stating that she will await a response from the NEIGRIHMS director, she said that the preliminary report suggested that there were doctors present to attend to the patient.
The Health Minister also stated that NEIGRIHMS is a central organization but the state government can act as caretaker since it functions in the State.
“We can also be the caretakers on behalf of the public and we can request them and we can ask them what were the reasons for occurrences of any incident in their property while attending to patients,” Lyngdoh said.
She also said that she was very disturbed to know that a very young person lost his file whether or not it was because of lapses of medical assistance or whether or not there were other factors for the loss of that life that would be ascertained, once she received a report from the director.
It may be recalled that Chaos erupted in the emergency wing of the NEIGRIHMS on Sunday after an accident victim succumbed to his injuries leading his family members and friends to claim that the youth had died owing to medical negligence.
Videos of the incident, which have gone viral, captured the heated arguments between the family members and friends of the victim and the security staff at the hospital.
A police team had to be called in to control the crowd and the situation was brought under control.
The deceased’s relatives claimed that the youth, who had sustained injuries on his legs in an accident near Umiam, was kept at the emergency ward and denied any medical treatment for four hours after which he succumbed to his injuries.
NEIGRIHMS officials have denied any negligence and said the institute tried its best to revive the youth.