Government job for negligence victim's wife

Kolkata: Keeping her promise that the state government will stand by the family of deceased patient Sanjoy Roy, who died of alleged medical negligence at Apollo Gleneagles Hospital last month, chief minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday offered a government job to the wife of the deceased.

Ruby Roy was offered an appointment letter of the state tourism department and has been asked to report at the office of West Bengal State Tourism Development Corporation in Salt Lake at 11 am Friday.

Ms Roy along with her child met Ms Banerjee at the state secretariat Nabanna Thursday morning where she was handed over the appointment letter.

She will be working as a trainee assistant manager. “I was called by the officer in charge of Kalighat police station this morning and was asked to come at the chief minister’s Kalighat residence. I reached there as soon as I could, and then the chief minister took me to her office at Nabanna where I was handed over the appointment letter,” Ms Roy told reporters at Nabanna.

She said that Ms Banerjee told her to keep faith in the probe being conducted by the state health department and the police.

“You are young and you have to bring up your child. This will help you to stand in your own feet and to be self-sufficient,” she said, quoting the chief minister. Ms Banerjee also called up the deceased’s mother and spoke to her, assuring her of all possible assistance.

The Phoolbagan police that is probing the alleged medical negligence and inflated billing is taking help from the cyber crime cell to find out whether the billing staff was instructed by some higher officials of the hospital.

Officials from the cell accompanied by the additional officer in charge of the police station, Suman Naskar, visited the private hospital Thursday afternoon.

“They will be collecting digital evidence to examine whether there was any conversation or message exchange between the hospital’s top officials and the billing staff,” a police officer said.

Roy, a resident of Dankuni in Hooghly, met with an accident and was admitted to Apollo Hospitals on February 16 with injuries on his chest and stomach.

After seven days at the hospital when the  bill escalated to over Rs 7 lakh, his family members decided to shift him to state-run SSKM Hospital. He was shifted there on February 23 at 9.30 pm and later that night died.