Kolkata: A man travelled for 200 kilometres in the northern part of West Bengal in a public bus with his five-month-old child’s body in a bag as he was unable to afford the ambulance price of Rs 8,000 demanded by the driver.
He was taking his son’s body home from Siliguri to Kaliaganj after the treatment. Debsharma stated that he packed the body in a bag and took a bus to Kaliaganj in Uttar Dinajpur district, about 200 kilometres from Siliguri in Darjeeling district, without telling anyone because he was afraid of being deboarded if the co-passengers of staff found out.
He stated that a 102 ambulance driver told him that the service was free for patients but not for transporting the dead.
This is Ashim Debsharma; father of a 5 month old infant who died in a Medical College in Siliguri.
He was being charged Rs. 8000/- to transport the dead body of his child. Unfortunately after spending Rs. 16,000/- in the past few days during the treatment, he couldn’t pay the… pic.twitter.com/G3migdQww8---Advertisement---— Suvendu Adhikari • শুভেন্দু অধিকারী (@SuvenduWB) May 14, 2023
He stated, “My five-month-old son died last night after treatment at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri for six days, during which I spent ₹ 16,000.” “I did not have money to pay ₹ 8,000 demanded by an ambulance driver there for transporting my child to Kaliaganj.”
The BJP’s leader in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, questioned the effectiveness of the Trinamool Congress government’s ‘Swasthya Sathi’ health insurance scheme, while the TMC accused the saffron camp of politicising a child’s death.
Suvendu Adhikari tweeted the video of a father and wrote, “Let’s not get into technicalities, but is this what Swasthya Sathi has achieved? This is unfortunately the true portrayal of the ‘Egiye Bangla’ (advanced Bengal) model.” TMC Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen accused the BJP of trying to “play dirty politics.”
