Yogi Adityanath, Photo credit: PTI
For the patients of the otherwise chaotic and filthy Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad town, the air-coolers on Sunday, when the mercury touched 48 degrees, were no less than a blessing.
They, however, had little idea that the blessing was going to be short-lived. The patients did not know that the air-coolers had been installed in the wards not for them but for the visit of chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
All the air-coolers, which were rented from a private tent house in the town, were removed almost immediately after Adityanath left the hospital. According to the sources, a probe has now been ordered into the matter.
Reports said that the chief minister, who was on a visit to Allahabad on Sunday, went around different wards at the hospital and also interacted with the patients there to know about the problems.
The hospital authorities had installed air-coolers in the wards apparently to impress the chief minister. The authorities, in a bid to hide the name of the rental agency, had put a sticker on the place where it was written.
The air-coolers had stickers displaying 'Junior Doctors' Association' apparently to convey the impression that they had been there courtesy the doctors.
''We thought that the coolers would be there permanently,'' said an attendant of a patient at the hospital. The district administration has ordered an inquiry into the matter, sources said.
The same hospital administration had on Saturday forcibly discharged a seven-year-old gang rape victim from the hospital so that Adityanath might not meet her family.
Earlier also the state officials had installed air-conditioner and sofas at the house of a BSF jawan, who was martyred in Jammu & Kashmir last month, in Deoria district during Adityanath's visit. The AC and other items were removed after the chief minister's visit.