Patiala hospital sets up panel after row over jailed Punjab AAP MLA’s overstay
The Patiala hospital administration said that hereafter doctors will have to seek the recommendation of the board to admit any jail inmate. Moreover, no inmate would be allowed to prolong the admission for more than seven days without the approval of the board of doctors.
A day after reports of jailed AAP MLA Jaswant Singh Gajjan Majra, 61, getting VIP treatment at the Government Rajindra Hospital in Patiala for over a month surfaced, a three-member board of doctors was set up on Thursday to ascertain if he requires hospitalisation.
The hospital administration said that hereafter doctors will have to seek the recommendation of the board to admit any jail inmate. Moreover, no inmate would be allowed to prolong the admission for more than seven days without the approval of the board of doctors.
“If any prisoner is allowed hospitalisation beyond seven days without the approval of the board of doctors then the head of the department where the inmate is admitted will be solely responsible (for this anomaly),” read the direction issued by the officiating medical superintendent.
The directions by the hospital administration were issued after the media reported on Aam Aadmi Party MLA Gajjan Majra’s month-long stay in the air-conditioned wards of the hospital instead of the jail since May 11.
Gajjan Majra was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a ₹40-crore bank fraud case on November 6, 2023. The AAP MLA was taken to hospital on May 11 after he complained of uneasiness. Dr Saurabh Sharma, head of the cardiology department, where the MLA was admitted between May 11 and June 6, did not respond to repeated calls and messages.
It is learnt that doctors of the cardiology department asked the hospital administration to ensure the discharge of the MLA as there was no medical ground to keep him admitted longer.
Even after being discharged on June 6, Gajjan Majra did not return to jail, the Patiala Central Jail superintendent, Manjit Singh Sidhu, said.
Amid the controversy, the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr HS Rekhi is learnt to have put in his papers on health grounds. The resignation is yet to be accepted. Dr Rekhi was not available for comment.
Gajjan Majra was admitted in the urology department on June 7, while he was admitted to the cardiology department on May 11. Both these departments are in the air-conditioned super-specialty ward wing of the hospital.
There would be a prisoner ward wherein all jail inmates in judicial custody would be admitted.
