Patna: Bihar health minister Tej Pratap Yadav has come under fire after he deployed a whole contingent of doctors from a premier government hospital at home when his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad fell sick last month.
The team of doctors was withdrawn a couple of days ago, only after the health minister’s father recovered, triggering a fresh controversy.
As per reports in the local media, the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, a premier health institute in Patna, deployed a team of top doctors at the residence of the health minister soon after his father who celebrated 70th birthday on Sunday fell sick last month.
The team included the head of general medicine department, additional medical superintendent, deputy medical superintendent and two staff nurses. The team remained in the service of health minister’s father for full nine days from May 31 to June 08 until the RJD chief fully recovered.
The deployment comes amid continuing severe scarcity of doctors in Bihar hospitals to attend the common men, prompting the opposition to launch massive attack on the ruling Grand Alliance government in the state headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar.
“This is a gross misuse of government machinery. We have no objection over calling doctors at home but it’s indeed wrong to deploy the whole team of doctors in the service of health minister’s father at the cost of common patients,” remarked state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nityanand Rai.
However, the hospital authorities said they didn’t do any wrong adding this all was done on the request of the health minister who also happens to be the chairman of hospital’s governing body.
“We had got a request from the health minister to depute doctors for one of his relatives who was said to be suffering from high fever,” hospital’s medical superintendent Prabhat Kumar Singh told a local media today.
He though refused to reveal the name of the patient explaining, “Even Mohammad Ali Jinnah did not reveal his patient’s identity when he was being treated for tuberculosis.”
RJD chief ally and Bihar education minister Ashok Chaudhary too came to his defence saying there was nothing unusual in deploying a team of doctors at the residence of health minister when his father was ill.
“Lalu Prasad is not only the father of health minister but also a former Bihar chief minister, and hence he deserves special treatment. Moreover, the state government arranges a special planes to shift a VIP to some top hospital for better treatment in the event of his being sick,” explained Chaudhary who comes from the Congress party, a coalition partner in the ruling Grand Alliance.
