Uttar Pradesh probes boy’s death on dad shoulder

The Akhilesh government in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday ordered a probe into the allegations that a 12-year-old boy was denied timely treatment in Kanpur even as his father ran from hospital to hospital, carrying the ailing boy on his shoulder.

The boy later died on Monday. Uttar Pradesh health minister Ravidas Mehrotra told reporters that two inquiries have been set up at different levels and those responsible for denying treatment to the boy would not be spared.

In heart-wrenching visuals from Kanpur, a 12-year-old boy is seen hanging limply on the shoulders of his father, who is hurrying, apparently to a children’s ward.

The father, Sunil Kumar, has alleged that his son Ansh died on his shoulder, even as he tried to get a doctor to attend to the boy urgently. “My son was in Class 6 and very intelligent. He had high fever since the past two days and was being initially treated at private clinics. I took him to a local hospital but they asked me to take him to the government hospital,” he told reporters.

Mr Kumar, a mechanic, said he waited for 30 minutes at the emergency ward of the government-run Hallet Hospital before he was allegedly told to take the boy to the children’s section, some 200 metres away.

The doctors did not even examine the child, neither was the father provided a stretcher.

At the children’s section, he was told that the boy died and would have survived if brought earlier. “It took me nine minutes... How could he be dead in just nine minutes ” the father asked, sobbing bitterly.

The Hallet hospital now claims that the child was dead when his father brought him.