Abdullah Satar, an employee at Sonapur Jute Mill, had been receiving treatment at the ward for six days for injuries sustained at work. But Satar was suddenly transferred to a crowded place by the hospital administration.[break]
Following pressure from the Maoist party, the hospital management has reserved the beds in the General Male Ward for the free treatment of Maoist cadres falling ill or getting injured during the strike, according to a hospital source. The ward remains locked and is opened only when Maoist cadres are brought in for treatment.
Other patients have been forced to stay in the crowded paying ward even as the ward reserved for the Maoists remains unoccupied. “We don´t have any unoccupied bed now. We will have to keep patients on the floor if more of them come to the hospital now,” one doctor said ruefully.
This is the first time that a special ward has been created in the hospital which did not allotted a separate ward even during the Janaandolan II. Medical Sueprintendent at the hospital Dr Sheetal Yadav, however, denied allotting the ward for Maoists. “We have vacated the ward for patients at emergency as there is no place to keep them,” Dr Yadav claimed.
But hospital staffers said patients from emergency are not taken to the reserved ward while Maoist cadres are taken there directly for treatment by doctors and health workers affiliated with the Maoists.
Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission has said that remote hill districts like Bajura, Achham, Bajhang and Darchula are facing an acute shortage of medicines and food for lack of transport due to the Maoist strike.
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