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Patient At Ranchi Govt Hospital Made To Eat Off The Floor Because 'There Are No Plates'

Sick.
IndiaTV/YouTube

In an appalling case of apathy, a sick woman with a broken arm was made to eat food off the floor in a government hospital in Ranchi, Jharkhand, because the hospital staff claimed they 'had no plates'.

According to a report in India Today, when the patient at the Ranchi Institute of Medical Sciences — identified as one Palmati Devi — asked for food, she was initially refused. But later, she was told that she would have to eat off the floor in the orthopaedic ward because there were no plates.

Hungry and desperate, Palmati then ate daal, rice and vegetables off the floor.

BL Sherwal, the hospital director told the publication:

"Patients are given food on plates. We have ordered an inquiry and will take strict action against those who served her food on the floor."

Instances of criminal ill-treatment, apathy and negligence are a routine occurrence in Indian hospitals.

Earlier this week, a woman in Chhattisgarh, whose eight-month-old foetus had died, became a victim of doctors' apathy after several hospitals refused to operate on her without advance payment of fees. She died on Monday night after the infection spread in her body.

In August this year, a video of a man carrying his dead wife's body on his shoulder in Odisha after no ambulance was made available to him made headlines across the globe. In another incident in Odisha, a member of a hospital staff was seen breaking the bones of a dead body to tie it in a bundle and carry it to the morgue.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.