It took more than half a day for 55-year-old Madhavan to get proper treatment after he was attacked by an elephant near his house on Sunday.
The daily wager was taken to Gudalur Government Hospital and then referred to Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) only to be taken to a private hospital in Coimbatore.
Even there, he could not get the treatment and was finally admitted to a private hospital in Kerala on Monday morning. Madhavan’s friend M. Hanifa (44), who hails from Indra Nagar in the area, said that around 4.30 p.m. on Sunday, children of the locality shouted that an elephant was near Madhavan’s house.
Hearing this, he ran to the road where the jumbo knocked him down with its trunk, injuring his chest. He also suffered injuries on both legs when the animal stamped him. He was later taken to Gudalur GH that was 22 km away in a jeep. On reaching the hospital around 7 p.m., more than 200 villagers thronged the place and alleged medical negligence and delay in treatment.
Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) of Gudalur C. Vijaybabu tried to intervene to ensure that the patient was given treatment. But, things worsened when the conversation between a doctor and the RDO turned into a heated argument. While the doctor referred the patient to Coimbatore, the ambulances there were not ready to take Madhavan to the CMCH.
The RDO, Tahsildar and revenue staff pooled in Rs. 10,000 to hire a private ambulance.
Hanifa said that they reached the CMCH around 12.30 a.m. and the doctor there said that the patient could be treated only in the morning. “So, we took him to a private hospital around 1.30 a.m.,” he said, adding the private hospital had demanded Rs. 1 lakh to treat him. He claimed that the hospital also refused to treat him under the government’s insurance scheme. The villagers then took him to a private hospital at Perinthalmanna in Malappuram district, where he was admitted around 6 a.m. on Monday, after travelling.
The daily wager was taken to the GH at Gudalur and then referred to CMCH only to be taken to a private hospital in Coimbatore and then to a hospital in Kerala
