Week after Punjab health minister made V-C Raj Bahadur lie on 'shabby' hospital bed, 500 mattresses purchased

Faridkot, August 8

A week after Punjab Health Minister Chetan Singh Jauramajra made Dr Raj Bahadur, Vice-Chancellor (VC) of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), lie on a patient’s bed, the university registrar has placed an order for 500 mattresses for Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital (GGSMCH) at Faridkot.

The July 29 incident had stirred a nationwide controversy over the alleged ‘impolite’ behaviour of the minister with the VC after a video clip went viral.

The Registrar of BFUHS has placed order of value Rs 12.86 lakh for the purchasing of 500 mattresses for the patients bed in the hospital.

Alleging shabby condition of mattresses on patients’ beds in the GGSMCH, a constituent college of BFUHS, the Health Minister had made the VC lie on a bed in Prisoners’ Ward in the hospital.

Sources in the medical college said a demand for 400 mattresses in the hospital was already received on April 7. Another letter to arrange these mattresses was written by the authorities in the medical university on April 26. The tender for the purchasing of these mattresses was floated on June 23. A meeting to check the mattresses’ sample was held on July 25, four days before the state health minister allegedly made the VC made lie on one of the ‘shabby’ mattresses and blamed him for the poor condition of the mattresses for the patients in the hospital.