Covid patient’s wife says molested at hospital, police probe

PATNA The Bhagalpur police have constituted a three-member team to probe the case of alleged sexual harassment of a woman who was taking care of her Covid-infected husband at a private hospital in Bhagalpur

PATNA

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The Bhagalpur police have constituted a three-member team to probe the case of alleged sexual harassment of a woman who was taking care of her Covid-infected husband at a private hospital in Bhagalpur.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, the woman is seen wailing and appealing to people not to trust hospitals. Narrating her ordeal, the woman is heard saying she was molested by an employee at the Glocal Hospital in Bhagalpur, who she identified as one Jyoti Kumar.

The woman’s husband, a software engineer, was later brought to a private hospital in Patna where he died on May 8. The woman has alleged that a doctor at the Patna hospital too molested her and the hospital administration deliberately switched off the oxygen supply in the ICU to force people to buy oxygen cylinders.

Talking to media persons in Patna, the woman said her family, living in Noida, had come to Bhagalpur to celebrate Holi and decided to stay back as Covid cases began rising across the country.

On April 9, her husband fell ill and got himself tested twice for coronavirus, but the results were negative. Later, a doctor in Noida asked him to get a chest CT scan done, which showed infection in the lungs. The man and her mother were admitted to Glocal Hospital in Bhagalpur.

The woman said Jyoti Kumar, an attendant at the hospital, molested her several times.

She said that in the meantime, her husband’s condition worsened, after which he was referred for treatment to Mayaganj government hospital, but doctors there refused to attend to him.

“We then decided to take him to a hospital in Patna and admitted him in the ICU on April 26. However, doctors there did not even visit the ICU. One of them inappropriately touched me several times during his visit to the ICU. I could not gather courage to shout as I feared for my husband,” she said.

She alleged the hospital staff cut off her husband’s oxygen supply and she was forced to buy oxygen cylinders from the black market. The hospital sold an oxygen cylinder for ₹50,000 each, she alleged.

When contacted, Glocal Hospital at Bhagalpur accepted that a person by the name of Jyoti Kumar worked in the hospital. “We have removed Jyoti Kumar from the services and the police are free to probe and take action,” said Dr Ajim, the hospital’s managing director.

Meanwhile, Bhagalpur’s senior superintendent of police Natasha Gudia said a three-member team headed by city SP Puran Jha would probe the incident. The SSP said she spoke to the woman and asked her to send a written complaint about the incident.

Meanwhile, Patna High Court advocate Sama Sinha mentioned the incident before the court and urged it to take suo motu cognizance. Sinha said she had sought an urgent hearing in the case.

All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), Bihar, demanded that the guilty be arrested at the earliest and hospitals in question be blacklisted by the government.

“It’s a matter of great shame for the entire health sector. Where will the women go if such incidents occur at the hospitals during this crisis?” said Mina Tiwari, national general secretary of the AIPWA.

Shashi Yadav, state secretary of the AIPWA, demanded immediate arrest of culprits and said the hospitals concerned should be blacklisted.