A grievously injured woman, who lost her two children in a road accident near Palayamkottai a couple of days ago and her critically injured husband on Thursday, was thrown out of Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital by the hospital staff after obtaining signatures on some documents.
As the affected lady staged a dharna along with her relatives and a section of the public on the hospital premises for a while in protest against her forcible eviction, tension prevailed on the TVMCH campus on Thursday.
When Azhaguraj, a Thiruvananthapuram-based scrap trader, and his family members were going in a van to his wife's native village Kongaraayakurichi near Vallanaadu in Tuticorin district on last Tuesday early morning, the vehicle dashed against a speeding sand lorry near KTC Nagar.
As the lorry smashed the van and dragged it for about 100 metres, van driver Kumar (32) and Mr. Azhaguraj's children A. Ashwathi (4) and A. Karthikeyan (2) were killed on the spot while the scrap trader, his wife A. Bhuvaneshwari (28) another daughter A. Jothilakshmi (8) sustained injuries and were admitted to TVMCH.
Even as Ms. Bhuvaneshwari was waiting indefinitely for a surgery to be performed on her for the fracture she sustained, Azhaguraj succumbed to his injures at the TVMCH on Thursday.
“The hospital workers demand money for everything. While the surgery was not performed immediately on me to rectify the fracture, I've been shunted out of the hospital even as I'm in physical and psychological trauma due to the unbearable loss,” Ms. Bhuvaneshwari wailed inconsolably.
On seeing the poor lady staging dharna under a tree in front of the emergency and trauma care ward of the TVMCH, a section of the public too joined her. Sensing that the crowd's ire may turn against them anytime, the hospital workers started pacifying the frail Bhuvaneshwari and asked her to return to the ward. Rejecting it, the lady left for a private hospital for further treatment.
Denying the entire episode, a doctor, who did not want to be quoted, said: “The lady left on her own as she wanted to participate in the last rites of her husband”.
