A young man’s fractured leg was treated by tying a cardboard carton to his leg instead of a plaster cast in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur. Nitish Kumar, who injured his leg after falling from his bike, was taken to a primary health centre in Minapur, where a carton was bandaged to his leg.
Mr Kumar was then moved to nearby Shree Krishna Medical College and Hospital College in Muzaffarpur. Instead of taking off the makeshift splint and replacing it with a plaster cast, no doctor visited him over the five days he was admitted in the hospital, his family alleged.
Videos from the hospital show the young man lying in bed in a corner of a room with the sheet of cardboard still tied to his leg with a worn out bandage.
According to Mr Kumar, he had gone to Minapur on his motorcycle when he fell from it and injured his leg. His leg was tied with the cardboard carton at the health centre before he was sent to the hospital.
The hospital’s superintendent Dr Vibha Kumari said that the patient will be treated soon and doctors have been instructed to attend to him. She also said that that the matter is under investigation to find out why no doctors treated him and replaced the cardboard splint with a plaster.
However, she denied any negligence by the hospital, putting the blame on the primary health centre that put the cardboard splint on his leg.
(With inputs from Kaushal Kishore Pathak)
