Students of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) have been demanding an immediate enquiry into the death of Dalit scholar Surya Pratap Bharati.
Bharati, a first-generation Dalit scholar hailing from Mau district of Uttar Pradesh, had joined UoH in 2014 and was about to submit his PhD thesis in September 2020. He was currently in the sixth year of the programme at the university’s Department of English.
On 17th August, 2020,30-year-old Bharati was rushed by his friends to the Citizens Specialty Hospital as referred by the University Health Centre, after having suffered an acute ischemic stroke.
Faizan, a PhD scholar from Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), an All India Students’ Association (AISA) activist and a close friend of Bharati, told The Kashmiriyat, “When we took him to the hospital, he retained mild cognitive abilities. He could speak, recognise people and retained some of his motor functions even though the left side of this body was paralysed”.
The AISA issued a detailed account of the incidents that happened, leading up to the death of Bharati. “After Surya was admitted to Citizens, the presiding doctor recommended an immediate cerebral surgery after running the diagnosis and tests. Subsequently, all was done and arrangements were made in accordance with the instructions and demands of the hospital. A rapid antigen test was run where Surya was tested COVID-19 negative. However, the following day the hospital refused to operate without running a full COVID-19 RTPCR Test,” read the statement by AISA.
“So, for 24 hours, Surya was kept in an isolation ward. Neither were we informed about his condition nor we have any idea whether he was put on any medication,” Faizan told The Kashmiriyat,
On 18th August, the sample for RTPCR test was collected. Finally, on 19th August, Citizens Speciality hospital declared that Surya had tested positive for coronavirus and consequently denied any further treatment. They said that he had to be moved to another hospital.
UoH students are part of an insurance scheme, which gives them coverage of up to 1.5 lakh INR. They are likewise given a 40% reduction in the total hospital bill amount.
A bill of 56,000 INR was presented by the hospital on the first account, however, they later kept haggling for 86,000 INR, after the hospital refused to acknowledge Surya as a student of the university (despite still being a registered student) in the university and refused to acknowledge the University’s insurance scheme as well.
“Valuable time was squandered in this upheaval”, said Faizan. “In the meanwhile,an on-edge companion who had slipped into the isolation ward found Surya convulsing and immediately informed the doctors,” he added.
At this point, Surya’s general well being condition crumbled that had to be put on a ventilator support for 2 hours. The hospital gave them a hefty bill of around 1.57 lakh INR. After a lot of contentions with the students, the Citizens Hospital consented to let Surya be transferred to another hospital on the payment of 1.12 lakh INR.
Plans were made and Surya was moved to the Continental Hospital. “Where the doctors told us, that Surya had just an extremely remote possibility of survival since the damage was irreversible”, said Vishal Kumar, a student of HCU and a friend to Surya.
In the next several hours that followed, he developed Edemas and multiple organ failure. Finally, at 9:30 am on August 20th, 2020 Surya was declared brain dead before succumbing to his ischemic clots on 21st August, 2020 at 4:11 PM.
“We applied for a RTPCR test at Continental and the test outcomes indicated Surya had not gotten the virus,” said Vishal. “In addition, a third RTPCR test, to re-evaluate the past RTPCR, affirmed that Surya was COVID-19 negative,” he added.
“So, that was the moment we decided to register a FIR against the Citizen hospital,” said Faizan.
The AISA said in their statement said, “Lestthere be any room left for doubt over Surya’s test results at Citizens Specialty Hospital, another antibody test from Continental Hospital detected Surya non-reactive effectively corroborating he could not have contracted the coronavirus anytime in the past week. This establishes beyond doubt the criminal magnitude of the negligence and recklessness on part of Citizens hospital that costed Surya his life.”
“Since Citizens Hospital already had a protocol regarding the non-admittance of COVID-19 patients and since they also knew that Surya’s case was an emergency and that he was in a critical condition that needed immediate surgery, they shouldn’t have admitted Surya, in the first place and asked him to be taken to a different hospital,” Faizan told The Kashmiriyat.
“However Citizens recklessly went ahead and admitted him and kept him in their facility for over 24 hours without any proper treatment, which proved fatal for my friend,” claims Faizan.
The Ambedkar Students’ Association in their statement, said, “But is Surya an exception? Just a year ago, we witnessed the demise of another Dalit Scholar from Odisha, Rashmi RanjanSuna. Same ignorance, same denial and same institutional murder. Like how Citizens hospital had shown apathy towards Surya’s life, Himagiri hospital treated Rashmi’s life the same. However, an important question to be asked now is – Will the HCU administration show the same consideration towards Citizens hospital, which it showed towards Himagiri by not filing a case for medical negligence?Most probably, yes.”
“We want strong action to be taken against the criminal negligence of citizen hospital,” said GopiSwamy, general secretary of the students’ union. However, the Chandanagar police station has so far refused to register a FIR.
Students’ union along with a few other student organizations are now making a mass-email campaign to the vice chancellor of the university and to the National Commission for Scheduled Caste demanding an inquiry against Citizens Hospital, the Hyderabad Police and UoH CMO.
Meanwhile, on 31th August, AISA activists protested at the Telangana Bhawan and submitted a memorandum to Telangana Resident Commissioner to file FIR against Citizens Hospital claiming the grave criminal negligence and the apathy and non-cooperation of the UoH administration in the treatment of the PhD scholar.
“In spite of all this, police has still refused to register the FIR and now we will go to court directly,” said Faizan.
UoH’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Anupama Rao in conversation with Deccan Herald said that Surya was found unconscious in the hostel. He was brought to the medical room for examination and afterwards quickly taken to Citizen’s Hospital. “I was in touch with the neuro-physician there. When he reached, the doctors said they have to follow Covid-19 procedures. On the second day, the doctors seemed positive about his condition. We did hear about the insurance issues. We tried to help. I can’t comment on any other aspect of the case”, underscored Rao.