Times of India; Wed, Dec 22, 2010,
YAVATMAL: A court in Yavatmal on Monday ordered the Wadgaon Road police station officer Baijnath Latpatte to launch a probe into the circumstances that led to the death of a ZP lady teacher. The probe was ordered after preliminary hearing of a petition filed by the husband of the deceased.
Usha Gaiki was a teacher in the Yavatmal Zilla Parishad and suffering from cancer. She was admitted in the local Government Medical College for treatment, but the hospital could not ensure proper treatment due to lack of infrastructure. So they advised her to get better care in a well-equipped hospital elsewhere. Accordingly, Gaiki was shifted to Nagpur-based Getwel Hospital and on examination advised to undergo immediate surgery, for which she had to remit Rs 1.5 lakh in advance.
According to the petitioner Baban Gaiki, being a primary teacher with limited financial sources, they could not find such a huge amount at one stroke. Finally, Usha applied to the then chief executive officer Ramchandra Kulkarni of Yavatmal Zilla Parishad for a loan advance. The CEO had directed the Yavatmal Panchayat Samiti to sanction a sum of Rs1 lakh, and forwarded the application to the BDO. However, Usha was never given the loan because her application reportedly 'went missing'. Unfortunately, Usha later died despite getting the better treatment after shelling out a considerable amount.
Later, Baban Gaiki contacted all top officials of the ZP for reimbursement of his deceased wife's medical expenses. Even the ZP health committee chairman Arun Raut had instructed the concerned officials to sanction the bill, but to no avail. His deceased wife's medical bill was also rejected outright on the lame excuse that the private hospital which treated her was not part of the government-approved list of hospitals.
An aggrieved Baban then applied to get copies of the rules pertaining to the reimbursement of medical expenses of ZP employees under the RTI Act, but it was not of any use.
Left with no alternatives, Baban then approached the court with a plea under section 166 of IPC and his counsel Manoj Kale alleged in preliminary arguments that the lady teacher died due to the mental torture and non-payment of her loan by the department. The court directed the PSO to investigate the matter under section 202 of IPC in order to ascertain the circumstances that led to the death of the lady teacher.
"The prevailing list of hospitals approved by the government is very old, when there were limited facilities for cancer and similar treatments across the state," Baban has said. He added that the list should have been updated so that better medical care is ensured for poor employees.
.JPG)
.JPG)
