In a new turn in the food on the floor case at Ranchi hospital, the suspended staff has revealed that the woman in the picture was mentally disable and always insisted on eating from the floor.
Chandramani, an employee of Ranchi Institute of Medical Sciences, told Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagraan that the woman, identified as Palmati Devi, was not even a patient at the RIMS hospital, she was left there by her family members.
“I used to give her some food risking my job, and this is what I have earned from it,” said Chandramani has been suspended after the picture of a patient eating from the hospital floor made it to the headlines.
He further told the paper that he tried to persuade her and usually gave her food in a paper or plastic plate, but she always threw away the plate and ate only from the floor. “I tried to give her chapatti instead of rice sometimes, as she would eat chapatti in hands, but on that day I did not have any chapatti so I gave her rice,” Chandramani said.
Reports of an orthopaedic patient forced to eat from hospital floor at Ranchi’s premier medical institution RIMS had shot to headlines on Friday after another Hindi daily reported the incident.
According to the report, when Palmati Devi asked for food, she was initially rudely turned away and later, served daal, rice and vegetables on the floor of the corridor of the orthopaedic ward where she was admitted. The kitchen staff told her they had no plates.
