A hospital in Dubai waived the bill of ₹1.52 crore in Indian currency of a Covid-19 patient from Telangana on humanitarian grounds and discharged him from hospital after 80 days of treatment without charging him a penny.
According to E Chitti Babu, senior official of the NRI cell in the Telangana government, 42-year old Odnala Rajesh, a native of Venugumatla village in Gollapalli mandal of Jagitial district, landed in Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad in the early hours of Wednesday.
“We, along with his family members received him in the airport. We granted him permission to a 14-day home quarantine and sent him to his native village,” Chitti Babu told HT.
Rajesh’s wife Laxmi is a washerwoman by profession and also works as an agriculture labourer on daily wages. His daughter Mounika (18) is a student of B. Com student and his son Madhu (16) is studying in Class 12 (Intermediate).
Rajesh who had been to Dubai as a construction worker a couple of years ago, was admitted to Dubai Hospital in Dubai on April 23 with fever and cough and he tested positive later. After 80 days of treatment, he recovered from Covid-19 and was discharged on Monday.
“The hospital authorities handed over a bill of 7,62,555 Dirhams ( ₹1.52 crore) to Rajesh, but he had no money to pay the amount. A local Telugu NRI Gundelli Narasimha came to the rescue of Rajesh,” Chitti Babu said.
{{/usCountry}}“The hospital authorities handed over a bill of 7,62,555 Dirhams ( ₹1.52 crore) to Rajesh, but he had no money to pay the amount. A local Telugu NRI Gundelli Narasimha came to the rescue of Rajesh,” Chitti Babu said.
{{/usCountry}}Narasimha, president of the Gulf Workers Protection Society in Dubai who had been monitoring Rajesh’s health right from the beginning brought the matter to the attention of Sumanth Reddy, a volunteer in Indian Consulate in Dubai.
Reddy, along with another social worker Ashok Kotecha of BAPS Swaminarayan Trust, requested Harjeet Singh, Consul (Labour) of Indian Consulate in Dubai to help the poor worker. Singh wrote a letter to Dubai Hospital management asking them to waive the bill on humanitarian grounds and they responded positively and waived the bill and discharged the patient.
Kotecha provided free flight tickets to Rajesh and his escort Dyavara Kankaiah and paid ₹10,000 for pocket expenses. “Both of them reached Hyderabad in the early hours of Wednesday,” Chitti Babu said.