TEAM HERALD
CANACONA: Canacona residents have threatened to agitate if the nine-year-old boy who broke his thigh bone in Wednesday’s rickshaw accident was not operated on by Friday. They claimed that the Goa Medical College (GMC) doctors were insensitive in the treatment.
Seven other students were also injured after their rickshaw toppled onto its side at Patnem.
At a press conference in Chaudi on Thursday, Instrucao de Educacao Progressiva chairman Shantaji Naik Gaunkar and senior photo journalist Soiru Komarpant stated that the doctors were attending to the boy under “normal circumstances” instead of treating him as an exigency.
“Nine-year old Brijesh Komarpant, who is in deep pain due to breakage of his thigh bone, was put on a glucose drip and administered pain-killers at Hospicio Hospital, Margao. As the Margao doctors did not show urgency to operate on him, he was moved out at 8.30 pm the same night and brought to GMC at 9.30 pm,” said Komarpant.
He continued, “From 9.30 pm to 11 am, he was kept outside the operation theater, before being taken back to the ward. When asked, the doctors informed us that the boy will be operated under normal circumstances, and that no exigency was needed.”
“Is this the way a student who met with an accident and is in constant pain is treated at our State’s prime hospital? The illogical and casual approach of the GMC doctors to an accident victim is very embarrassing for us. How does our state’s prime healthcare unit function for its citizens in dire straits,” asked Gaunkar, adding, “All we want is early treatment for the boy and not a casual approach.”
Gaunkar and Komarpant also criticized the functioning of the Community Health Centre (CHC), Chaudi. They stated that the boy could have been treated in Canacona itself if the CHC had proper facilities.
“Canconcars are always deprived of proper medical care by successive governments, and the present BJP government is no different. The Health Visiting Committee (HVC) at Canacona is also a total farce and a toothless body with no functioning capability,” said Gaunkar.
Komarpant, who sat on hunger strike in 1990 to demand improvement in health facilities, added, “If Canconcars don’t see an improvement in health care within 45 days, we will launch a sustained agitation, for which Canconcars do not need political affiliations.”
