Notice to private nursing home for refusing to treat Delhi teenager

Rajat Menon was slapped repeatedly by two-teenaged vendors during a scuffle. When he became unconscious, the boys apparently took him to two hospitals that refused treatment.

The Delhi government’s health department issued a show cause notice to a nursing home in east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar for refusing treatment to a critically injured 13-year-old boy.

The mother of Rajat Menon, who was died of injuries after an assault by vendors. (Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times)

Rajat Menon was slapped repeatedly by two-teenaged vendors during a scuffle. When he became unconscious, the boys apparently took him to two hospitals that refused treatment.

He was finally taken to Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital, where he was declared brought dead.

In the show cause notice, Malik nursing home was asked why emergency care was refused to a critical patient. “Hospitals must provide immediate medical care, without delay, due to any reason whatsoever, to persons requiring emergency medical care,” according to a 2014-advisory by the director of Delhi Health Services, the letter stated.

The notice, issued by director general of health services Dr Tarun Seem, asked the nursing home to respond within a month with reasons why its registration should not be cancelled.

The hospital said the child was already dead by the time he was brought to the hospital. “When the boy was brought in, he had no pulse and his pupils were not reactive. We could not do anything because the boy was brought dead. But the people accompanying him wanted to take him to a higher centre,” said nursing home owner Dr Varinder Malik.

Read: In Delhi, two juvenile paan sellers held for death of teen in fight

The nursing home has a 45-second CCTV footage when the boy and his companions were at its premises.

ACCUSED MAY BE MAJOR

One of the two alleged juvenile accused may turn out to be an adult and treated like an adult accused in the case, a police officer privy to the probe said on Friday.

He said a team of investigators on Friday collected the boy’s documents from his school to confirm his age. “His school documents show he is about 18 years. We will inform the juvenile justice board about the development and a request will be made to allow us treat him as an adult accused and not a juvenile,” said the officer.

The police are waiting for Rajat’s autopsy report to ascertain the cause of his death. The preliminary probe suggested he could have died due to injuries on his private parts. “There were no visible injury marks on his body,” the officer added.

HUMAN RIGHTS BODY SLAPS NOTICE ON COMMISSIONER

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to Delhi Police commissioner Alok Kumar Verma over reports of delayed action in the case. The panel asked Verma to explain the circumstances leading to Rajat Menon’s death.