This could happen only in Delhi, the national Capital where people are supposed to be safe. A Delhi Government hospital sent an 11-year old boy home after just giving first aid without bothering to remove the bullet lodged in his head. It happened early this month.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken a serious view of the attitude of the doctors at the Dr. Hedgewar Aarogya Sansthan Hospital in East Delhi and issued notice to the Delhi Health Secretary and the Superintendent of the hospital seeking reports about the incident within four weeks.
The Commission was acting suo motu based on media reports which alleged that the boy, Nakul Bhargava, after getting first aid at Dr. Hedgewar Hospital had to spend an agonizing night in pain before his parents took him to a private hospital the next day where he was operated upon and the bullet was successfully removed. The NHRC observed that the contents of the press report, if true, “raise a serious issue of violation of right to health of the child”.
Reports said when the boy, who was bleeding profusely from the right side of the head, was taken to the hospital by his father Sunil Bhargava, the doctor there just cleaned and stitched the wound. The boy, who was brought home later and spent an agonizing night in pain, was taken to a private hospital next morning where a CT scan showed a small metallic substance (bullet) in his head just above his right ear.
The doctor at the government hospital neither bothered to take an x-ray nor referred him to a bigger hospital where facility like CT-scan was available, the report said.
