Sunita Tomar was the face of India’s anti-tobacco campaign, but the Union government did not give her any monetary assistance for treatment, her family has said, days after she died in penury at a Gwalior hospital.
“We didn’t get even one rupee from the Union government. What she got was just a ‘shreefal’ from the then Health Minister, Harsh Vardhan, when she was felicitated for her campaign against cancer in August 2014,” Sunita’s husband Brijendra Singh Tomar, 35, told PTI on the phone from Bhind, his home district, in Madhya Pradesh.
“I was hopeful of Centre’s assistance when she was roped in for the video campaign [in which she had shared her experience], but it did not come off,” he said. However, the family had never asked the government for any help, he added.
Brijendra, a driver, said he had to repay Rs. 3.50 lakh that he had borrowed for Sunita’s treatment. And he was finding it difficult to bring up his children Dhruv, 13, and Gandharv, 10.
When Sunita’s health deteriorated, the family rushed her to a hospital in Bhind on March 31. From there, she was referred to Jayarogya Hospital in Gwalior. She died at 3.30 a.m. April 1. She had undergone a surgery for oral cancer at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai in July 2013, but the disease recurred.
A few days before her death, Sunita had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, upset at the statement of Dilip Gandhi, BJP MP and chairman of the Lok Sabha Committee on Subordinate Legislation, that there was no Indian study to confirm that tobacco use led to cancer.
“Recently, Dilip Gandhi wrote to the Health Ministry, asking for the notification on bigger tobacco pack warnings to be kept in abeyance. I was shocked that people in such high posts can be so irresponsible. Bigger warnings can probably save some innocent lives like mine. You have started to take people along in your “Mann Ki Baat” [Mr. Modi’s radio programme], wherein you recently talked about de-addiction. I hope you will also take up the cause of tobacco,” she had written in the letter.
