Rejected by three hospitals, 12-year-old dies in fourth

School and the hospital system failed a 12-year-old boy, who sustained a head injury in the classroom after a thrashing from a teacher and then spent almost half a day on the road before he was taken in for surgery.Prince, who had started last Friday, October 7, like any other with his father dropping him at school in Greater Noida’s Badalpur region, didn’t survive the ordeal. “I found my son in a semi-conscious state in school. He couldn’t utter a word and was covered in his own vomit,” Devdutt (38) said on October 10 of his eldest son.He doesn’t know where to lay the blame – on the teacher who allegedly beat Prince with a cane, on the school management, on the hospital staff who didn’t admit him, or on all of them. What Devdutt is certain of is that his son was fine that morning. He rejects the school’s claims to the police that Prince had been unwell. medium94831634Prince studied in Class VI at Captain Sawariya Public School in Mahawar. “I dropped him at 7.15am on October 7. Just before I was to leave to pick him up, which would usually be around 1.15pm, I got a call from the school about Prince falling unconscious,” says Devdutt, who brought his son back home and then took him to a clinic.The clinic staff told Devdutt his son needed to be taken urgently to a hospital equipped to treat a head injury. “I took him to Vaid Ram Charan Hospital in the village. They asked us to take Prince to Navin Hospital in Dadri. Initially, we thought he was paralysed as he was only able to move the right side of his body,” Devdutt says. medium94831662At Navin Hospital, the CT scan report – accessed by this correspondent – found internal bleeding, leading to swelling in the brain. The hospital authorities referred the child to a “higher centre for further management”.The family decided to take Prince to Delhi. “We started from Dadri around 5pm. First, we went to Safdarjung Hospital, but they didn’t admit the child. We rushed to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and then to GB Pant. After being refused at each place, we finally got a bed for Prince at LNJP Hospital around 9pm. The child was dying, but the hospitals told us they had no beds available,” Devdutt says. Prince was operated on the next morning, according to his family. He died hours later, on Saturday evening. “When we asked others and spoke to other children in the school, we found out that Prince was beaten with a cane by his teacher Shobharan. My son had injury marks on his chest, shoulder, back and even on his thighs. How can someone beat a child so brutally?” Devdutt says. medium94831618Some of Prince’s classmates, who were present at the time of the incident, told TOI on October 10 that the teacher had given them a Hindi test and 7-8 students had failed. “Prince had also failed. He was hit on the hands with a stick thrice by the teacher. Other students were also beaten. After being hit, as Prince sat down on his desk, he fell to the ground and puked in the classroom,” says one of his classmates.While a search is on for the 42-year-old teacher, who has been absconding since Saturday, police are waiting for the autopsy report for a clearer picture on the nature of his injuries. Since the boy fell, the possibility of the head injury being caused by the impact on the floor is not ruled out. medium94831684“Four teams have been deployed to arrest the teacher, who has been booked under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code. He had visited the child in hospital and was with the family during treatment. But once he came to know about the child’s death, he fled,” says Arvind Kumar, ACP-2, Central Noida. The FIR was filed based on a complaint from Prince’s mother Minakshi. Rajbir Nagar, owner and principal of the school, says, “Our school is cooperating with the police and helping them out in all possible ways." medium94831740 Doctors say the CT scan report indicated cerebral edema. “Since the family spent hours looking for a bed, the bleeding would have increased, also leading to pressure increase inside the head, which could cause sudden death,” says Dr Khyati Chauhan, a Delhi-based medical practitioner, adding the police also need to check on his medical history.